Westlake - The Getaway Car: Nonfiction Miscellany

The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
2014 by The University of Chicago
Foreword 2014 by Lawrence Block
All rights reserved. Published 2014.
Printed in the United States of America

23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 1 2 3 4 5

ISBN-13: 978-0-226-12181-9 (paper)
ISBN-13: 978-0-226-12195-6 (e-book)
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226121956.001.0001

Most of Donald E. Westlakes writings in this volume are published by permission of Abigail Westlake. For additional credits, please see .

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Westlake, Donald E., author.

[Works. Selections. 2014] The getaway car : a Donald Westlake nonfiction miscellany / edited by Levi Stahl ; with a new foreword by Lawrence Block.

pages ; cm

Summary: Collection of published and unpublished gems: a memoir about learning to write, an imaginary interview between Westlakes various identities, essays on writing, introductions, and letters to writers like Stephen King and Brian Garfield. A true miscellany, this includes a piece by Abigail Westlake, a recipe for Mays Famous Tuna Casserole and a Midnight snack.From the publisher. Includes index. ISBN 978-0-226-12181-9 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-226-12195-6 (e-book) I. Stahl, Levi, editor. II. Block, Lawrence, writer of foreword. III. Title. PS3573.E9A6 2014 813'.54dc23

2014003017

This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).

THE GETAWAY CAR

A DONALD WESTLAKE NONFICTION MISCELLANY

Edited by Levi Stahl

With a new Foreword by Lawrence Block

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS
CHICAGO AND LONDON

Donald Westlake at home, with Max. Photo by permission of Abigail Westlake.

BOOKS BY DONALD E. WESTLAKE

Crime Novels

The Mercenaries (also published as The Cutie ) (1960)

Killing Time (1961)

361 (1962)

Killy (1963)

Pity Him Afterwards (1964)

The Comedy Is Finished (2012)

Comic Crime Novels

The Fugitive Pigeon (1965)

The Busy Body (1966)

The Spy in the Ointment (1966)

God Save the Mark (1967)

Who Stole Sassi Manoon? (1968)

Somebody Owes Me Money (1969)

Cops and Robbers (1972)

Help I Am Being Held Prisoner (1974)

Two Much (1975)

Dancing Aztecs (1976)

Enough (1977)

Castle in the Air (1980)

High Adventure (1985)

Trust Me on This (1988)

Baby, Would I Lie? (1994)

Smoke (1995)

Put a Lid On It (2002)

Dortmunder Novels

The Hot Rock (1970)

Bank Shot (1972)

Jimmy the Kid (1974)

Nobodys Perfect (1977)

Why Me (1983)

Good Behavior (1986)

Drowned Hopes (1990)

Dont Ask (1993)

Whats the Worst That Could Happen? (1996)

Bad News (2001)

The Road to Ruin (2004)

Thieves Dozen: Stories (2004)

Watch Your Back! (2005)

Whats So Funny? (2007)

Get Real (2009)

Novels

Up Your Banners (1969)

Adios, Scheherazade (1970)

I Gave at the Office (1971)

Brothers Keepers (1975)

Kahawa (1981)

A Likely Story (1984)

Sacred Monster (1989)

Humans (1992)

The Ax (1997)

The Hook (2000)

Money for Nothing (2003)

Memory (2010)

Western

Gangway! (with Brian Garfield) (1973)

Juvenile

Philip (1967)

Short Stories

The Curious Facts Preceding My Execution and Other Fictions (1968)

Levine (1984)

Tomorrows Crimes (1989)

A Good Story and Other Stories (1999)

Nonfiction

Under an English Heaven (1972)

The Getaway Car (2014)

Anthology

Once against the Law (coedited with William Tenn) (1968)

Murderous Schemes (coedited with J. Madison Davis) (1996)

Writing as Richard Stark

Parker Novels

The Hunter (1962)

The Man with the Getaway Face (1963)

The Outfit (1963)

The Mourner (1963)

The Score (1964)

The Jugger (1965)

The Seventh (1966)

The Handle (1966)

The Rare Coin Score (1967)

The Green Eagle Score (1967)

The Black Ice Score (1968)

The Sour Lemon Score (1969)

Deadly Edge (1971)

Slayground (1971)

Plunder Squad (1972)

Butchers Moon (1974)

Comeback (1997)

Backflash (1998)

Flashfire (2000)

Firebreak (2001)

Breakout (2002)

Nobody Runs Forever (2004)

Ask the Parrot (2006)

Dirty Money (2008)

Grofield Novels

The Damsel (1967)

The Dame (1969)

The Blackbird (1969)

Lemons Never Lie (1971)

Writing as Tucker Coe

Kinds of Love, Kinds of Death (1966)

Murder among Children (1967)

Wax Apple (1970)

A Jade in Aries (1970)

Dont Lie to Me (1972)

Writing as Samuel Holt

One of Us Is Wrong (1986)

I Know a Trick Worth Two of That (1986)

What I Tell You Three Times Is False (1987)

The Fourth Dimension Is Death (1989)

Writing as J. Morgan Cunningham

Comfort Station (1973)

Writing as Judson Jack Carmichael

The Scared Stiff (2002)

Writing as Curt Clark

Anarchaos (1967)

Writing as Timothy J. Culver

Ex Officio (also published as Power Play ) (1970)

No matter where he was headed,

Don always drove like he was

behind the wheel of the getaway car.

ABBY ADAMS WESTLAKE

CONTENTS

by Lawrence Block

FOREWORD

Sometime in the early spring of 1959 I plucked a book from a shelf in Yellow Springs, Ohio, and paid thirty-five cents for it. The title was All My Lovers , by Alan Marshall, and I bought it because I noted that it had been published by Midwood. Back in August I had sat up late in my parents house in Buffalo writing a book for Midwood, and Id since returned to Antioch College, where I was assiduously neglecting my studies while writing a couple more books for the same publisher, all of them examples of what weve since learned to call Midcentury Erotica.

And now Id actually found a Midwood title offered for sale. I took it home and read it, and realized right away that Alan Marshall, whoever he might be, was pretty good. I kept reading and encountered a scene I still recall. A principal character was a cad who had, in the manner of his tribe, behaved badly with a young woman from el barrio . Her brothers responded by paying him a visit and beating the crap out of him. And then they left, and Ill quote the scenes closing words from memory: They did not take anything. They were not thieves.

Damn. This guy Marshall was good.

He was, as youve probably worked out on your own, Donald E. Westlake, whom I was yet to meet. He, however, had already met me, when I turned up in New York during Christmas vacation and dropped in at the Scott Meredith office. That was where I had worked from August 1957 to May 1958, and it was where Don was working that December. I had a brief conversation with Henry Morrison, my agent, and Don will share his recollection of the moment later in this volume.

So he met me, but it was one-sided; his was just a face in the background. Come summer, Id finished the year at Antioch and taken a room at the Hotel Rio on West 47th Street; I planned to spend the summer writing more Midcentury Erotica before returning to Yellow Springs for a final year. (Shows what I knew. The school had other ideas, and while I was at the Rio, they sent me a letter, informing me that they felt Id be happier elsewhere. Boy, were they ever right.)

One of the Rios charms (and they were thin on the ground) was its proximity to the Scott Meredith offices, then at Fifth Avenue and 47th Street. I was a frequent visitorto drop off a manuscript, to sign a contract, to pick up a checkand at one such visit I met Don. The workday was ending, and we introduced ourselves, and he suggested we go get a beer.

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