Rum Punch

by Elmore Leonard

[jamiereadthis]

I finally made it over to my winter stockpile of Rick Bass and was settling in. Getting used to the rhythms of it again (which takes no getting used to at all, for me). Letting the slow, deep, calm, quiet solitude fill up my soul. Then I was housesitting for a few days. There, I watched Jackie Brown. Then, I had to pull out Rum Punch.

I thought, oh boy. This can’t work. Rick and Elmore, Bass and Leonard? My two favorites but, so so different. I thought, what if one taints the other? What if one makes the other seem ponderous, boring? What if one makes the other seem flashy, cheap? Some things just jangle too much if they’re together. You keep your loves apart, sometimes.

But oh my God, no.

The very opposite of that, where I was sitting on couches and porches (the mild winter sun) with Montana in one hand and Palm Beach in the other. Back and forth I’d go for hours. The buried sea, the balmy beach.

And one didn’t taint or tarnish the other. Each deepened and expounded on it all. My two loves: the deep wilds of nature, the deep wilds of humanity. No moralizing to be found. Complexities galore. The crime and the hunt. The love and the mischief.

So if you want to get drunk on a fifth of Rick Bass and down chasers of Elmore Leonard? Here’s my stamp of approval, but: only if I get to drink along.

[The Rick Bass accompaniment was Where The Sea Used To Be, if that’s your kind of thing.]

[Boy howdy did I love the book more than the movie. How did Tarantino bloat the story and yet cut out the best parts?]