For the first time in a long time, I finished a book during my travels last weekend. I started a second one, but I’m not sure when I’ll have time to finish it up.
The book in question that I finished, however, was “The Switch,” by Elmore Leonard (perhaps best known as the author of “Get Shorty,” and a few dozen other books which have been turned into movies). The sequel to “The Switch” was “Rum Punch,” which featured a character named Jackie Burke, whom Quentin Tarantino remade into the star of his 3rd feature film “Jackie Brown.”
I love Elmore Leonard’s work for two reasons — it’s messy character driven madness with snappy dialog, and because he writes about Detroit and Miami, which I love both of. In fact, the Detroit stuff I love the best, as I was born in the Detroit area, and still view it as something of a paradise.
I understand that this makes as much sense as viewing DC as being laid back, but follow me here. We lived an hour north of Detroit in a town called Lexington, which sat on Lake Huron — I had a beach in my backyard. Whenever we went into the city, I got toys or money. When I left there, I went to Rocky Mount, NC (which is pretty close to Hell). Even going back to Michigan since, and seeing what these places are really like does not take the nostalgia away. No amount of giant carnivorous flies [NOTE: true story, the last time I visited the area, I went down to the public beach that was near my old house, up on Lakeshore, and this family was just leaving, and they had left behind, I guess thrown out onto some rocks on the beach, a pristine peanut butter and jelly sandwich with one bite taken out of it. I walked away from there, and walked back within a minute, and the sandwich was gone. No one had gone near it, no large animals. I have no idea to this day how that happened, and frankly do not want to know -- to be honest I wish this were a joke, but it's really, and it's terrifying] can make the sickly sweet taste of Faygo Red Pop taste any less wonderful.
The story focuses on the kidnapping of a woman in a very bad marriage [NOTE: kidnapping seems to be a fairly common thread in Leonard's writing, as it was also employed in "52 Pickup," which I understand was made into a less than satisfactory movie staring Roy Schneider. I haven't seen it, so I hope it's better than I've been told, because the book is great]. As it turns out the marriage is worse than it seemed, as the husband is cheating on the wife, and filed for divorce just before the kidnapping occurred.
Strangely, Louis, one of the kidnappers (played by Robert De Niro in “Jackie Brown”), comes across as the hero of the book. In fact, the thing that’s so strange about the story is that you end up empathizing with the characters who should be the villains. In “Rum Punch,” you get to see them very much as they really are, but in this book, it’s a much more laid back, and fun view.
I’d have to say that “Rum Punch” is the better book, but “The Switch,” is definitely more fun.