Ed McBain

Ed McBain taught me how to write.

Well, that's only 1/3 true. Actually, it was Ed McBain and Evan Hunter and William Goldman. But since Ed McBain and Evan Hunter are the same person, I guess that makes it 1/2 true.

Now if you have the slightest curiousity why I, who have never written a word of non-fiction in my life, attribute any writing ability I might have to lessons learned largely from the best writer of police procedurals in the world, read on.

McBain created the 87th precinct, a fictional police precinct populated with beautifully drawn, deeply etched characters. The precinct was briefly the subject of a television series back in the day, which incidentally starred Gina Rowlands and Normal Fell, should you be interested. Its fictional characters — from Detective Steve Carella, to Meyer Meyer, to Fat Ollie Weeks — moved effortlessly in and out of focus and background story-line through some thirty years and approximately 70 books. They engaged you in their story lines and personal dramas. You cared about their families and romances and break-ups as much as you cared about how they would ultimately catch the colorful crook. McBain was a great writer of dialogue and there was no one alive who could touch him in the genre. He won awards. He prolifically turned out books at the rate of about two to four a year. He touched a lot of people. Including me.

He was the master of the one sentence paragraph.

When he wasn’t being Ed McBain, he was Evan Hunter, the author of such books as Blackboard Jungle which, in the innocent days of the 50's, was one the first novels marked "for adults only" that I, at age 11, wasn't supposed to read but did. Evan Hunter also wrote the screenplays for Strangers When We Meet and the Hitchcock film, The Birds. McBain/Hunter wrote over 102 books, not including screenplays, teleplays, and children's books. In one brilliant conceit, the "two" of them actually collaborated on a novel, (Candyland) in which "Ed" wrote one half in police procedural form, and "Evan" wrote the other half in his novelistic style.

He loved his wife.

I think that's one of the other things I really liked about Ed McBain. He finally found real love later in life — third marriage I think. He married a woman named Dragica Dina Hunter to whom he dedicated every one of his books over the last few years, the love simply shining through the tough-guy dedication page in a way that only another writer would really get.

Evan Hunter (a.k.a. Ed McBain) really had an influence on my life. I never told him. Never wrote to him. Never said wow dude, you are this amazing writer and every single time I go into Barnes & Noble, I make a bee-line for the M's (and then the H's) in the new fiction section, and every time there's a McBain or a Hunter I feel like a teenager who just got a new X-box game. You really made a difference to me. Thank you.

So. You may wonder why I'm writing this.

I just finished Fiddlers. When I closed the book, I realized that the lives of all these terrific characters — who I'd come to know and care about over two decades — would cease to exist. I felt like I lost some real friends.

I did.

Ed McBain died peacefully in the arms of his beloved wife, Dragica Dina Hunter, surrounded by loved ones in the comfort of his home, on July 6.

It's my bloggy and I'll cry if I want to.