{"id":3163,"date":"2009-01-01T16:25:22","date_gmt":"2009-01-01T21:25:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/?p=3163"},"modified":"2009-01-01T16:25:22","modified_gmt":"2009-01-01T21:25:22","slug":"rip-donald-westlake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/rip-donald-westlake","title":{"rendered":"R.I.P., Donald Westlake"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donald Westlake died on New Year’s Eve<\/a> at the age of 75. My condolences to his wife and family.<\/p>\n

I read a bunch of Westlake’s caper novels when I was a kid, and recently returned to the first one (which I took out of my local library, 25 years ago<\/a>). I picked up a few others in the last month or two. In 2003, Michael Blowhard made him the first recipient of the Michael Blowhard Award for Excelling at Making Me Happy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He wrote till the end of his days while I, meanwhile, have yet to start on the caper novel that I felt inspired\/justified to write after re-reading The Spy in the Ointment<\/em>. But I refuse to revise my New Year’s resolutions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Donald Westlake died on New Year’s Eve at the age of 75. My condolences to his wife and family. I read a bunch of Westlake’s caper novels when I was a kid, and recently returned to the first one (which I took out of my local library, 25 years ago). I picked up a few … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “R.I.P., Donald Westlake”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[338],"class_list":["post-3163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-literature","tag-donald-westlake"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-P1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2483,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-sept-19-2008","url_meta":{"origin":3163,"position":0},"title":"Unrequired Reading: Sept. 19, 2008","author":"Gil","date":"September 19, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Get yo' links on. Just click mo'. Meet me at the corner of Art and Commerce, Mr. Hirst. * * * Now that we're done watching The Wire, I can finally start reading interviews and articles about it! Here's Nick Hornby interviewing co-creator David Simon. * * * But enough\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/art"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2829,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/what-it-is-11308","url_meta":{"origin":3163,"position":1},"title":"What It Is: 11\/3\/08","author":"Gil","date":"November 3, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"What I'm reading: The Spy in the Ointment, by Donald Westlake. I checked this book out of my local library around 25 years ago, and I decided to go back and check to see if it's still there. After they computerized the system, they threw out the old sign-out cards,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "literature"","block_context":{"text":"literature","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B000GGSMJ4","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":8491,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/podcast-simple-tricks-and-nonsense-ep-101","url_meta":{"origin":3163,"position":2},"title":"Podcast – Simple Tricks and Nonsense (ep. 101)","author":"Gil","date":"January 5, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Virtual Memories Show: Levi Stahl - Simple Tricks and Nonsense \"The biggest thing I learned editing The Getaway Car is that a working writer's work is never done.\" Let's kick off 2015 with a podcast about one of the 20th century's great America writers, Donald Westlake! Our guest, Levi Stahl,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "baseball"","block_context":{"text":"baseball","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/sports\/baseball"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/e\/ir?t=voyantpublishing&l=as2&o=1&a=022612181X","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4129,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/what-it-is-62909","url_meta":{"origin":3163,"position":3},"title":"What It Is: 6\/29\/09","author":"Gil","date":"June 29, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"What I'm reading: Plutarch's life of Aemilius Paulus, and a little of The Hunter, a Richard Stark (Donald Westlake) book. But I'm in the home-stretch for my Top Companies ish, so I've just been reading a lot of SEC filings, analyst reports and various pharma-bloggers. What I'm listening to: A\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Aemilius Paulus\"","block_context":{"text":"Aemilius Paulus","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/tag\/aemilius-paulus"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0226770990","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3313,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/what-it-is-12609","url_meta":{"origin":3163,"position":4},"title":"What It Is: 1\/26\/09","author":"Gil","date":"January 26, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"What I'm reading: The Alcoholic, a boring comic book by Jonathan Ames and Dean Haspiel, and The Hot Rock, by the late, lamented Donald Westlake. Otherwise, same as last week: Montaigne and Clive James. What I'm listening to: Bebel Gilberto records What I'm watching: The last episodes of Arrested Development.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"andrew sullivan\"","block_context":{"text":"andrew sullivan","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/tag\/andrew-sullivan"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1401210562","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":12757,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/my-books-of-the-decade-2010-2019","url_meta":{"origin":3163,"position":5},"title":"My Books of the Decade: 2010-2019","author":"Gil","date":"December 24, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Alphabetical by author: I Will Be Complete: A Memoir - Glen David Gold (podcast) Essays After Eighty - Donald Hall A Carnival of Losses: Notes Nearing Ninety - Donald Hall James Merrill: Life and Art - Langdon Hammer (podcast) The Witch of Lime Street: S\u00e9ance, Seduction, and Houdini in the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "literature"","block_context":{"text":"literature","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/img_1567.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3163"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3163\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3165,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3163\/revisions\/3165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}