Out of the blue I got a note from Ethan Iverson of The Bad Plus, who’ll be in town this weekend for six shows in Yoshi’s Jack London Square, and wants to get together and talk Willeford. Sure. The guy’s obviously got good taste.
And his interest in crime fiction goes beyond Willeford — check out his blog Do the Math for a long survey of the works of Donald Westlake (I feel lucky to have hung around with Westlake a couple of times — like Willeford, a really fun guy), and a very interesting Blindfold Test interview with Lawrence Block. Take the test first yourself, then read the interview. (If I’m reading the interview right, it sounds as if Willeford made Block a little nervous, and Block definitely had different parameters about what you should aim for when writing for the paperback original jungle back in the fifties than Willeford did.)
