Interview with Bill Pronzini
by Jon Jordan
August, 2002

Bill Pronzini is an incredible author. His name is all over the mystery genre. He writes short stories, westerns, mysteries, and edits anthologies. His first published work was a short story in 1963, and he shows no signs of slowing down. A search with his name on amazon brought up 220 entries. His 28th “Nameless Detective” novel is coming out in Dec. of this year. So enjoy the interview with one of the most prolific authors I know of, and then, go read some of his books! -- Jon

JON:  Over the years you’ve written a great deal of different things, but with in the mystery scene you are probably best known for your “Nameless” series. How would you describe the series, and why did you decide not to give the character a name?

BILL:  I like to think of the “Nameless” series as humanist crime fiction (as opposed to hardboiled crime fiction) and as an ongoing biography of a man first and a detective second. He doesn¹t have a name because when I began the series I couldn¹t think of one that suited him, probably because in every way that matters he¹s me and I have no desire to rename myself. Lee Wright, the Random House editor who bought the first novel about him, felt that a series character needed some kind of tag; she’s the one who dubbed him the “Nameless Detective.” For a full explanation, see my intro to the first “Nameless” collection, CASEFILE.

JON:  You seem to be involved with a lot of anthologies, including the Gun in Cheek books. How did those come about?

BILL:  The 3 GUN IN CHEEK books are humorous nonfiction histories of bad mystery and Western fiction, not anthologies. As to the editing of anthos: I¹m a professional writer with no other source of income and anthologies were a relatively lucrative and easy way to supplement what I earned from my novels, short stories, and nonfiction; I’ve amassed a huge collection of books and magazines and have always been an omnivorous reader; and it was a pleasure tracking down good stories to fit a particular anthology theme. I no longer edit or co-edit anthos because I burned out on them. 80 or so over twenty-some years is more than enough for anybody except the king of anthologies, Martin H. Greenberg.

JON:  Is writing short story fiction more challenging than writing novels? It seems that not every one who can write novels can do both.

BILL:  Frankly I would rather write short stories than novels. They're much less challenging. I have a hyperactive imagination
and ideas for stories have always come easy, and I can write one in a few days to a couple of weeks depending on length. Novels take considerably more planning and effort.

JON:  How has publishing changed since your first story was published?

  BILL:  My first published short story was “You Don¹t Know What It¹s Like” in Shell Scott Mystery Magazine, 11/66. “Proof of Guilt” was published in EQMM in 1973. Publishing has changed radically since I came into the business, the main factor being the gobbling up of publishing houses by conglomerates whose corporate heads neither know nor care about books and who have been responsible for the death of numerous viable genre lines such as Doubleday Crime Club, the virtual death of the midlist novel, and the infuriatingly counterproductive emphasis on bloated, bestseller-type fiction. That's as much as I¹m going to say on the subject here.

JON:  You share a hobby with your Nameless detective, collecting pulp magazines. Where did your interest in them come from?

BILL:  I discovered pulp magazines in my teens, in a secondhand bookstore that I used to haunt in San Francisco. My grandfather was a reader and I started reading his digest-sized science fiction and mystery magazines at about age 12. I got hooked on Manhunt and hardboiled fiction, which led me to seek out back issues of Manhunt and its various 50s clones, which led me to novels and the pulps. My collection contains some 3000 pulp and digest magazines; “Nameless” owns 6000, but then he’s a lot older than I am. Or at least he started out that way.

JON:  You are one of few mystery authors who writes novels in collaboration with other authors. Do you enjoy doing this?

BILL:  With one exception (a mainstream novel with political columnist Jack Anderson), I¹ve enjoyed all the collaborations I’ve done. Interesting process, working with another writer to develop a third voice that is neither one nor the other but
an amalgam of the two.

JON:  Do you have a favorite among your work?

BILL:  “Nameless” novel: SHACKLES. Non-series novels: BLUE LONESOME, STEP TO THE GRAVEYARD EASY, A WASTELAND OF STRANGERS. Nonfiction: GUN IN CHEEK.

JON:  You’ve written under a number of pseudonyms, including Jack Foxx, Alex Saxon, Brett Halliday, and William Jeffrey. Different authors have different reasons for using various names on there work. Why did you?

BILL:  The Foxx and Saxon names were adopted because I was very prolific early on and didn¹t want to spread my own name too thin; also the novels published as Foxx and Saxon were quite a bit different, utilizing foreign locales and adventure themes, from what I was publishing as by BP. William Jeffrey is a joint pseudonym used for collaborations with Jeff Wallmann. Brett Halliday, Romer Zane Grey, and Robert Hart Davis were all house names under which I wrote pulp magazine fiction, alone and with Wallmann, for Leo Margulies’ string of digest magazines in the late 60s and early 70s.

JON:  What kind of things spark ideas for you?

BILL:  Anything and everything can trigger an idea -- newspaper articles, a fact or concept in a nonfiction book or novel or film, lines from a song or poem, etc. As I said, I have a hyperactive imagination.

JON:  The characters in your work really bring life to the words. Do you base any characters on people you actually know or have met? Do you put any of yourself into the books?

BILL:  I don¹t consciously base fictional characters on real people, though bits and pieces of certain individuals have been fused into characters. Murder victims, mainly. There¹s nothing more gratifying than creating a composite of people who have done you dirt or who for one reason or another you simply don¹t like and then bumping him or her off.

JON:  What’s the most difficult part of being a writer? And, what’s the best part of being a writer?

BILL:  The most difficult part, until recent years, was financial: Worry over when the next check would come in and how to keep the wolves from the door until a check shows up. Now that Marcia and I are reasonably solvent, the most difficult part is putting up with dismissive and careless reviews from individuals who don’t like or understand my work. Best part: Peer respect, specially when it comes unsolicited, and “found money” -- checks from wholly unexpected sources, such as foreign markets and film companies.

JON:  Why did you pick the 1890’s as the time period for Carpenter and Quincannon to operate in?

BILL:  The 1890s have always fascinated me. Very interesting transitional period in American life, a time of vast change mixed with the old pioneer spirit that affords plenty of story material

JON:  Being a collector of pulps I would imagine you spend time book hunting. What kind of places do you like searching for treasures in? What’s the best find you’ve had?

BILL:  I do indeed spend a lot of time book hunting. Secondhand bookshops, antique collectives, flea markets, junk shops, and now of course the Internet. I prefer hunting in person; finding treasures first-hand provides a greater rush. Most of what I collect is vintage material -- books, magazines, and pulps from the first half of last century. Best find I¹ve had? Probably a copy in dust jacket of John Dickson Carr¹s DEVIL KINSMERE for a a quarter. Though the best overall scores were a pair of private collections I bought, the first with two other collectors that yielded a first edition in dust jacket of Chandler’s THE BIG SLEEP, the second a solo purchase that brought me most of my Agatha Christie first editions.

JON:  What other types of jobs have you had before writing full time?

BILL:  I haven¹t held any other jobs since 1969. Before that: plumbing supply salesman, warehouseman, office typist, car-park attendant, part-time civilian guard for a U.S. marshal transporting federal prisoners from one lockup to another by car (sounds a lot more exciting than it was; mostly just boring road trips. But I did get one short story out of the experience).

JON:  How do you like to spend your free time?

BILL:  Reading. Hunting books. Archiving (tracking down information on writers, stories, publications, the more obscure and useless to anyone but me, the better). Watching old movies, particularly film noir. Spectator sports, particularly pro football. Swimming, hiking, long walks. Vegetating.

JON:  Who are some of your favorite authors?

BILL:  Too numerous to list. I read and collect many different types of fiction and nonfiction, depending on my mood.

JON:  Do you still do book tours or go to conventions?

BILL:  Still do book tours now and then; Marcia and I did one together this summer, mainly in Southern California. Conventions not so much any more, though we may well turn up at another Boucher-con or Left Coast Crime one day.

JON:  Is there anything you could tell about yourself that would surprise people to learn?

BILL:  Nothing that I¹d care to own up to in print.

JON:  If you could cast a movie of your life, who would you pick to play you?

BILL:  Walter Matthau.

JON:  What’s the one thing you always have in your refrigerator?

BILL:  It used to be Bombay Gin until I quit drinking. And Stilton and/or gorgonzola cheese until I quit eating. Now, in my bland and slim dotage, it’s frozen fruit.