The Politics of the Personal: Constructions of Identity in Elmore Leonard’s Bandits

Year 1998, Issue: 7, 13 - 21, 01.04.1998

Jopi Nyman

Abstract

Elmore Leonard’s picaresque crime novel Bandits 1987 is a popular novel by an author who in his many novels relies on the narrative strategies of westerns and crime stories. In his fiction Leonard explores the underside of contemporary American society, the world of unsuccessful criminals, corrupt cops, and pimps. In its own way Leonard’s writing gives voice to today’s cunning little man hero, one who struggles hard but is not too successful. In the body of Leonard’s work this novel marks a break from the past because of its description of a transition from the unashamed individualism evident in many of his crime stories to a more committed collectivism. In contrast to some of Leonard’s unpoliticized writings, in this novel politics play an emphatic role

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