"It was Clockers that allowed me to go into that territory that made me feel that I could go that way, that I could write crime novels that were entertaining on one side of the equation but on the other side were about something else."

That's George Pelecanos talking to the National Book Critics Circle blog Critical Mass about Richard Price's novel and its impact on him as a writer. The post is part of the blog's "In Retrospect" series, which is taking a look at Price's book this week. It's a fitting appetite-whetter for Price's forthcoming novel, Lush Life, due next month. As I wrote back in December, Price gave a reading here in Iowa City from the book that made me wish it was available at that moment. It was gritty, funny, incisive and spot-on. The passage he read is actually available as the short story "Night Fishing on the Delancey" in the Fall 2007 issue of The Paris Review.

The Critical Mass blog also features a talk with Dennis Lehane about Clockers, who calls it "one of the few Great American Novels in the American canon."

Both Lehane and Pelecanos write with Price for HBO's "The Wire," and Pelecanos is quick to say that without Clockers, there would be no "Wire."

An in-depth interview with Price is promised later this week on Critical Mass. Stay tuned.

Labels: books