Seven-film series features screen adaptations of the hard-boiled crime writer’s work Special event on Friday, May 12: Abby Westlake and Luc Sante in conversation with program curator Levi Stahl Museum of the Moving Image, May 12–14, 2017 Astoria, Queens, NY, (April 10, 2017)—Donald E. Westlake published nearly a hundred novels under various pseudonyms during his half-century career, the most influential Read More …
Unbeknownst to everyone at the time, the birth of Donald Westlake–82 years ago today–would eventually result in the immaculate conception of more than a dozen other personalities all living within the same man. The best known of these, of course, is Richard Stark, creator of the Parker series. Tucker Coe took up residence a couple decades later and told five Read More …
The Getaway Car headlines the 54 new pages that have been added to the site. The other 53 cover short fiction and short non-fiction gathered from the original periodicals found in the Westlake library. Nine of the short non-fiction pages include the full piece, reproduced as large images from the original publications, most of which were not reprinted in The Read More …
New Year’s Eve marked five years of life on Earth sans the creative genius and ebullient personality of Donald Edwin Westlake, etc, etc. I have not and will not make a practice of recognizing that date in publishing and personal infamy on this site, which, in itself, stands as a daily tribute to his memory. Instead, I will tend to Read More …
Don had long maintained that he would not allow the name “Parker” to be used in a film unless the filmmakers agreed to produce a series instead of another one-off. The producers of the recent Jason Statham film, Parker, did just that and thus were allowed to use the name. But they weren’t the first production team working in a Read More …
With 164 separate entries in the new master bibliography so far, we’re still only up to 1967. Ultimately, this table will become a comprehensive list of everything ever published under the name of Donald E. Westlake or one of his many pseudonyms. The current bibliography, listing novels, shorts, fiction, non-fiction and pseudonyms in separate tables, will not be replaced. It Read More …
The chronological trove of published novels and collections isn’t the only treasure in Don’s personal library. There are also several storage bins of periodicals containing Don’s published short stories, articles, essays and even a poem! This is a mountain of work that needs to be tackled if the DEW bibliography is ever going to be complete. The work has begun Read More …
Don’s seventh grandchild After a hiatus as I moved my family from Brooklyn to the Hudson Valley and witnessed the birth of my “way above average cute” daughter (according to a third party, honest!), I’m busily trying catch up on the latest DEW-related news and updating this website as quickly as possible. On to the report. New eBooks from our Read More …
Opening weekend has come and gone and the results are in. “Parker” came in 5th overall at the box office with a $7 million take over three days in more than 2,000 theaters nationwide. One of my pet peeves with the stenographic nature of American journalism is the fixation on opening weekend box office results. The only people who really Read More …
Propelled by what is probably the most aggressive and persuasive marketing campaign for any of the movies based on the Richard Stark novels, Parker, from the book, Flashfire, starts its theatrical run tomorrow. And I really can’t say enough about the marketing campaign, which has landed in my living room more times than I can count. Almost every person I Read More …
The first of what is slated to be several movies based on the Parker series (originally published under the pseudonym Richard Stark) is due to be released in January, 2013. The first trailer (below) is already out and beginning to make the rounds in theaters. And the die-hard DEW fans are already deep in discussion on the merits of the Read More …
The project of rebuilding the Westlake bibliography continues and there are still a few surprises to be found. Yet another pseudonym has been uncovered but it mostly belongs to another author, Laurence Janifer (aka Larry Mark Harris). The title in question was very likely finished by Don when Harris was unable to meet his deadline. You can read about it Read More …
The epic project of building a database and uploading images from every copy of every book in Don’s personal library has begun. The full collection containing one copy of every edition of every book in print, and in every language, numbers in the hundreds. Several hundreds. So far, I’ve been able to catalog the first 41. The 41st book in Read More …
Been a long time getting this site back to normal. Lots of updates while it was in safe mode. There will definitely be separate blog posts coming in the near future but, for now, here’s an annotated list of the doings in the past few months… Violent World of Parker Happy Birthday to Donald Westlake [Editor’s note: Special thanks Read More …
At long last, the site has been migrated over to the new host and the back-end works again! I have full control of the website for the first time in months. Big, tremendous thanks to those who left messages or sent emails offering to help. Sorry for the lack of communication but I have to pay the bills, too, and Read More …
