Regardless of when someone first discovers the writing of Robert Parker, they almost always reach a similar conclusion: the only thing that exceeds his genius is his mastery of the novel form. Few writers–if any–blend the elements of character, narrative and humor more expertly than the true heir to the Raymond Chandler legacy.<\/p>\n
Parker is the master of the detective driven mystery novel. A study in persistence, he writes page days a day, five days a week, fifty weeks a year. His bibliography includes more than sixty books encompassing the worlds of three different recurrent characters. The most well-known is Spenser, a well-educated but tough as nails hard-boiled private detective who quotes passages of Yeats, cooks gourmet food, and wears custom made shirts to accommodate his large neck and shoulders muscles.<\/p>\n
His influences include Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald. Mystery and fiction writers alike consider him a tremendous presence, a literal force of nature. Parker considers himself a writer first ( before being a mystery writer ) and advises other aspiring authors to stop waiting around for inspiration to strike and find it by sitting down before the empty page.<\/p>\n
And on January 19, 2010 at the age of 77, Robert Parker sits down at his desk one last time.<\/p>\n
His body is gone now, but his voice, spirit and stories live\u00a0 on, delighting readers and writers alike. Every mystery writer worth a damn in the last thirty years owes something to Parker, whether they recognize it or not.<\/p>\n
Here’s to you, Robert B. Parker. You’re a hell of a writer. Thanks for Spenser. Thanks for blazing a trail so brightly other writers could dream to follow. Thanks for being what every writer wants to be.<\/p>\n
And most of all, thanks for showing writers what they could be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Regardless of when someone first discovers the writing of Robert Parker, they almost always reach a similar conclusion: the only thing that exceeds his genius is his mastery of the novel form. Few writers–if any–blend the elements of character, narrative and humor more expertly than the true heir to the Raymond Chandler legacy. Parker is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-introspection"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.samhilliard.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.samhilliard.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.samhilliard.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.samhilliard.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.samhilliard.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11765"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.samhilliard.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11765\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11768,"href":"http:\/\/www.samhilliard.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11765\/revisions\/11768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.samhilliard.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.samhilliard.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.samhilliard.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}