Wallace Stroby

Via @mulhollandbooks: ow.ly/kJg150EpNtu

@EllroyReader It's very tense there when the annual employee evaluations come around.

Always found it interesting that in Sean Connery's Bond films Spectre goes from an organisation that 'doesn't tolerate failure' to one where Blofeld has signs saying 'If In Doubt ASK' in his command centre.

@hylandbutchers If you haven't read it already, track down W.L. Heath's VIOLENT SATURDAY from 1955.

@wallacestroby Cool hope it finds a safe place

I've read lots of heist novels (and written a few). And after some rereads, IMHO the most realistic heist in all of them is the fur store robbery in George V. Higgins' THE DIGGER'S GAME (1973). Working-class thieves in the Boston underworld, always looking for a score.

I always like to think the DEA supervisor @RealBillDuke plays in THE LIMEY is his same character from MENACE 2 SOCIETY, just farther up his career path. "You know you done f***ed up, right?'' youtube.com/watch?v=46OMpp…

@hylandbutchers There's an mss out there floating around, looking for a place to land.

@wallacestroby On my list. I read the more obvious ones. Have you anything new cooking?

@JoeUnclej And EDDIE COYLE as well. Two classics.

@wallacestroby Never heard of it. Off to buy it.

@RHarlandSmith "Leave off, Bob. You've gone loco!"

Matt Clark has passed.

@Joe22415262 @WhitStillman @tcm That fall and slide on the wet gantry looks unplanned and brutal.

@wallacestroby @WhitStillman @tcm Frankenheimer talks about that stunt in his tribute to Lancaster that @TCM occasionally plays between movies. Starts at about 4:29 youtube.com/watch?v=zFj1xk…

We liked it "back in the day" but in old age 2 1/2 hours sounds long - we don't have that many left!

@ChrisFHJordan @AsburyParkPress Mid '80s at Rutgers-NB, got to spend the afternoon with him and our Advanced Reporting class after he spoke there. Prince of a guy. Said he'd mention us on that night's broadcast, and he was as good as his word.

Here's why NY news legend Ernie Anastos was a big Bruce Springsteen fan app.com/story/entertai… via @AsburyParkPress #brucespringsteen #ernieanastos

@Joe22415262 @WhitStillman @tcm Great Lancaster stunt, climbing down in the rail yard in a single take, next to a moving train. And it's clearly him, not a double.

@WhitStillman It does not feel like 2 hours & 15 minutes. We found it my chance on @TCM & I have loved it ever since. I watched 3 movies in the last two weeks that were a little over 2 hours & they lost my attention in the last half hour. The sheer energy of Lancaster keeps it moving

@MuchAdoAboutNil @quigle12 I knew Bob. Great guy, and what a career ; wallacestrobycom.blogspot.com/2020/05/a-conv…

So some books about Hollywood are coming from Hollywood to Hollywood Ave. Interesting. (Thanks for the rec, @quigle12.)

@wmboyle4 @criterionchannl Wish HBO had done it as a series, with the first season ending in L.A. Though JG did projects later, that last shot of him in the driveway felt like the real goodbye.

David Chase’s NOT FADE AWAY was already an all-time favorite and one of the truest movies I know, but the black-and-white version (now on @criterionchannl) still managed to be a total revelation. Makes it all work even better. Difficult for me to articulate how much it moves me.

@fpaulwilson Legend. Met him back in 2000 on my very first visit to the Writer's House office.

ALBERT ZUCKERMAN – RiP. Al Zuckerman was my literary agent for fifty-plus years. I sold my first novel ("Healer") on my own and, shortly thereafter, I got a call from the head of someplace called Writers House who wanted to know if I’d be interested in meeting at his New York office. Well, why not? When we met he said he was handling foreign subrights for Doubleday (the publisher of "Healer") and said he liked my narrative momentum. If I didn’t have an agent, he’d like to represent me. I wasn’t sure what he meant by narrative momentum, and wasn’t sure what an agent could do for me, but I said sure. We shook hands and that was it: We were bonded. (He showed me what he could do when he gutted the next Doubleday contract.) After my third novel, he said I needed to expand my horizons: Send him three ideas I’d like to work on, and we’ll choose. We settled on one set in WWII with a Romanian castle and a strange, malignant occupant. I wrote it in about six months. Al was impressed, but said it needed work. So he got to work. His notes and edits shed new light on the book and I wrote the second draft with them in mind. The book was transformed. But Al wasn’t through yet. He decided to approach Hollywood before the publishers. It worked: We had a movie deal before he put the book up for auction. It landed on the NY Times bestseller list. And that is why "The Keep" is dedicated to Al Zuckerman. Things ran along smoothly until the early 90s when the horror genre went into a slump. I decided on a change of course—out of horror and into a medical thriller. But I didn’t want the publishers to treat the new book as just another Wilson horror, so I told Al I wanted to publish under a different name: Colin Andrews. Al was on board, but he wanted to introduce the “new author” at the Frankfurt Book Fair. The result was an international feeding frenzy. When he returned to the States, everybody was salivating for the book by this new author. Thanks to Al’s strategy, "The Select" ushered me into publishing's Seven Figure Club. So many stories to tell...but I'll keep them for a later day. Right now I’ve got a glass of Jameson’s waiting: Here’s to the man who changed my writing life, who took me from hack to bestsellerdom, and became a lifelong friend.

Cheering myself up on a cold and gray NJ day. 50 minutes of Texas rock 'n'roll bliss: youtube.com/watch?v=3b8DDR…

Every loss reminds me how much I loved this band.

On this day in 1964, the world lost one of its greatest voices; the man who shaped the sound of a generation and paved the way for countless artists who followed. Though he’s gone, Sam’s music continues to inspire, uplift, and remind us that art has the power to move the world forward.🕊️

@AmyKup @FANGORIA @rudymancuso Fango! I used to write for them occasionally in the '90s. Interviewed King and Barker, and reviewed tons of - mostly- not- good novels.

For @FANGORIA I talked to Rudy Mancuso, who has a big moment as Pauly Russo in latest ep of "It: Welcome to Derry." (Spoilers inside.) He made his directorial debut in "Música," a love letter to NJ/Newark's Ironbound, & has lots more cookin! fangoria.com/welcome-to-der… @rudymancuso

@SJRozan He does.

It’s ten p.m. Do you know where your Epstein Files are?

@NC_N17 @NHCLibrary Keep drinking, it'll get better.

@wallacestroby with the assist from @NHCLibrary : the Sunday Casual along with an extremely reliable author. This novel has started great.

@kingtubby1Oz Thanks. I've read all Garry Disher's Wyatt books, but that's about it.

@wallacestroby Truth by Peter Temple Anything by Temple in fact Sweet One by Peter Docker Also English writer Tim Willocks. Bad City Blues. Ultimate tale of revenge. Finally Wild Dogs by Michael Trant. Enjoy All from Oz except Willocks.

Thanks. That's high praise indeed.