Book Launch at BookCourt

Join us to mark the publication of It’s All One Case: The Illustrated Ross Macdonald Archives, published by Fantagraphics.

WHEN: Friday, October 14, at 7 PM

WHERE: BookCourt, 163 Court Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201 (718) 875-3677

I'll be reading from the book and Jeff Wong, who designed it, will be displaying a sampling of the over 1,300 images that fill its pages. (Jeff maintains one of the world’s largest personal archives of Ross Macdonald collectibles.) We will also share some rare sound clips from Paul Nelson's 1976 interviews with Macdonald, which form the book's foundation, and discuss the forty-year course these interviews took to finally reach publication.

Read more about the book below and at BookCourt's website.

"It's All One Case is the most important work of mystery scholarship to have emerged this century." —John Connolly, author of the Charlie Parker Mysteries

In 1976, the critic Paul Nelson spent several weeks interviewing his literary hero, legendary detective writer Ross Macdonald. Beginning in the late 1940s with his shadowy creation, the ruminating private eye Lew Archer, Macdonald followed in the footsteps of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, but ultimately elevated the form to a new level. “We talked about everything imaginable,” Nelson wrote—including Macdonald’s often meager beginnings; his dual citizenship; writers, painters, music, books, and movies he admired; how he used symbolism to change detective writing; his own novels and why Archer was not the most important character — “my God, everything.”

Commemorating last year’s centenary of the innovative and influential author’s birth, in a handsome, oversized format, It’s All One Case provides an open door to Macdonald at his most unguarded. Featuring in full color the covers of the various editions of Macdonald’s more than two dozen books, facsimile reproductions of pages from his manuscripts, magazine spreads, and many never before seen photos of Macdonald, including those by celebrated photojournalist Jill Krementz. It’s All One Case is an intellectual delight and a visual feast, a fitting tribute to Macdonald’s distinguished career.