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The Stark World of Donald E Westlake

Donald E Westlake was an American writer who wrote more than one hundred novels. He specialized in crime fiction, including the relentless hardboiled Parker series.

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The Stark World of Donald E Westlake

Donald Edwin Westlake grew up in Albany, New York, after being born in Brooklyn, New York. In his teens, Westlake wrote nonstop, and in 1954, sold his first short story. Over the following years, he attended Binghamton University in Binghamton, New York, and Champlain College in Plattsburgh, New York.

In 1959, Westlake relocated to New York City, where he first worked as a freelance writer and for a literary agency. He began writing full-time by 1960. Westlake produced a series of novels and short tales under his own name and many pseudonyms throughout the course of the following 48 years, starting with The Mercenaries, his first book published under his own name in 1960.

In all Westlake was married three times, his final marriage was to nonfiction author Abigail Westlake (Abby Adams).

On December 31, 2008, while traveling in Mexico for a New Year’s Eve party with his wife, Westlake suffered a fatal heart attack.

Remarkable as it seems, given the detailed depictions of crime and the criminal mind, Westlake had no background in crime and also no known connections with the criminal world .

Many of Westlake’s novels have been made into motion pictures including Point Blank (based on The Hunter) with Lee Marvin as Parker, The Split (from the book The Seventh) with Jim Brown as Parker ); The Hot Rock in 1972 with Robert Redford and Cops and Robbers in 1973.

Westlake also had success as a screenwriter. His script for the 1990 film The Grifters, adapted from Jim Thompson’s novel, was nominated for an Academy Award.

Pseudonyms

Westlake published one hundred novels and non-fiction books in his lifetime. Many of these were published under pseudonyms.

Richard Stark

Westlake’s most well-known alias was Richard Stark. In addition to being credited with significantly more work than any other name save Westlake’s own, the Stark pseudonym was noted for its distinct literary style, which was darker, harsher, less sentimental, and less obviously amusing than Westlake’s typical prose. Due to the success of the Parker series, Stark’s name became more well-known and profitable for Westlake than his own name for a while in the late 1960s.

Samuel Holt

In the late 1980s, the character of Sam Holt appeared in four mystery books. Among the titles are The Fourth Dimension is Death, What I Tell You Three Times is False, and One of Us is Wrong. In order to test his ability to find success under a different name, Westlake adopted the Holt pseudonym. He was thwarted when his publisher disclosed who “Holt” really was at the same time that the first book was published.

Alan Marshall/Marsh

Westlake acknowledged writing as many as 28 paperback soft-porn titles from 1959 to 1964 under these names including three featuring the character of Phil Crawford: Apprentice Virgin, All the Girls Were Willing, and Sin Prowl. Westlake was not the only author to work under Marshall’s name, as he on record as saying he had some friends contribute novels unbeknown to the publisher.

Tucker Coe

He published five mystery novels featuring the character of Mitch Tobin: These include Kinds of Love, Kinds of Death, Murder Among Children and Don’t Lie to Me.

Others

Other pseudonyms he used sparingly include Judson Jack Carmichael, Ben Christopher ,John Dexter, Andrew Shaw, Edwin West, John B. Allan, Don Holliday, Curt Clark, J. Morgan Cunningham, James Blue and Barbara Wilson.