James Crumley
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James Crumley | |
|---|---|
 Crumley at Bouchercon Chicago, 11 September 2005 | |
| Occupation | author |
| Nationality | American |
| Citizenship | American |
| Education | Master of Fine Arts (creative writing) |
| Alma mater | University of Iowa |
| Period | Template:Lty–Template:Lty |
| Genre | hardboiled/detective/crime |
| Notable works | One to Count Cadence The Last Good Kiss The Mexican Tree Duck |
| Notable awards | Dashiell Hammett Award Template:Lty The Mexican Tree Duck |
| Spouse | Martha Elizabeth (married c.1992) four previous marriages[1] |
James A. Crumley (12 October 1939 - 17 September 2008[2][1]) was the author of violent hardboiled crime novels and several volumes of short stories and essays, as well as published and unpublished screenplays. His novels The Mexican Tree Duck, The Last Good Kiss, and The Right Madness feature the character C.W. Sughrue, an ex-army officer turned private investigator. The Wrong Case, Dancing Bear and The Final Country feature a P.I. named Milo Milodragovitch. Bordersnakes brings both characters together. Crumley said of his two characters: "Milo's first impulse is to help you; Sughrue's is to shoot you in the foot."[1]
The detective "Crumley" in Ray Bradbury's trilogy of mystery novels (Death Is a Lonely Business, A Graveyard for Lunatics, and Let's All Kill Constance) is named in tribute to him.
Life
Crumley grew up in south Texas, where his father was an oil-field supervisor,[1] and was a grade-A student and a football player in high school. He attended the Georgia Institute of Technology on a Navy ROTC scholarship, but left to serve in the U.S. Army from 1958 to 1961. He then attended the Texas College of Arts and Industries on a football scholarship, where he received his B.A. degree with a major in history in 1964. He earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing at the University of Iowa in 1966. In 1968, he signed the “Writers and Editors War Tax Protest” pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War.[3] His master's thesis was later published as the Vietnam War novel One to Count Cadence in 1969. Crumley served on the English faculty of the University of Montana at Missoula, and as a visiting professor at a number of other colleges. He lived in Missoula, Montana from the mid-1980s until his death, where he found inspiration for his novels at Charlie B's. A regular there, he had many longstanding friends who have been portrayed as characters in his books.
Crumley died in Missoula on September 17, Template:Lty of complications from kidney and pulmonary diseases after many years of health problems.[2][1] He was survived by his wife of 16 years, Martha Elizabeth, a writer and artist who was his fifth wife. He had five children, three from his second marriage and two from his fourth, eight grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.[1]
Film
Crumley spent the better part of ten years working in and out of Hollywood, writing scripts that were never produced and doctoring the work of others.[1] In that time he co-wrote with Rob Sullivan the screenplay for the film The Far Side of Jericho, which debuted at the Santa Fe Film Festival on 10 December Template:Fy and was released on DVD in the United States on 21 August Template:Fy.[4] He worked on a number of drafts of the screenplay for the film adaptation of the comic strip Judge Dredd (Template:Fy), though none of his ideas were used in the final film. His commissioned but unproduced screenplay for the film The Pigeon Shoot was published in a limited edition. Additionally, Crumley provided the commentary for the Template:Fy English-language French film L'esprit de la route by Matthieu Serveau.[5]
Awards
The Mexican Tree Duck won the 1994 Dashiell Hammett Award, given by the North American Branch of the International Association of Crime Writers for the best literary crime novel. (However, despite claims made on a number of websites, Crumley does not seem to have been either a winner or a nominee for a Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award for The Last Good Kiss or any other novel.)
Works
- One to Count Cadence (Template:Lty) - novel, Vietnam
- The Wrong Case (Template:Lty) - novel, Milo Milodragovitch series
- The Last Good Kiss (Template:Lty) - novel, C.W. Sughrue series
- Dancing Bear (Template:Lty) - novel, Milo series
- Pigeon Shoot (Template:Lty) - unproduced screenplay, limited edition
- Whores (Template:Lty) - short stories
- Muddy Fork and Other Things (Template:Lty) - short fiction and essays
- The Mexican Tree Duck (Template:Lty) - novel, Sughrue series, winner Template:Lty Dashiell Hammett Award
- Bordersnakes (Template:Lty) - novel, Sughrue and Milo series
- The Putt at the End of the World (Template:Lty) - collaborative novel
- The Final Country (Template:Lty) - novel, Milo series
- The Right Madness (Template:Lty) - novel, Sughrue series
References
Notes
- ^ a b c d e f g McLellan, Dennis "James Crumley dies at 68; author of gritty but poetic crime novels" Los Angeles Times (20 September 2008)
- ^ a b Local author James Crumley dies at 68 url=http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2008/09/18/news/local/news02.txt date=2008-09-17 accessdate=2008-09=18
- ^ “Writers and Editors War Tax Protest” January 30, 1968 New York Post
- ^ THe Far Side of Jericho at IMDb
- ^ L'esprit de la route at IMDb
Further reading
- "James Crumley". Dictionary of Literary Biography. Volume 226: American Hard-Boiled Crime Writers. Detroit: Gale Group, 2000.
- "James Crumley". Contemporary Authors. Volume 121. Detroit: Gale Group, 2004.
External links
- James Crumley Papers, at the Texas State University-San Marcos
- James Crumley at IMDb
- L.A. Times obit
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