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(also reviewed)
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When I tell people I have a thing for morally grey narratives, people often tell me about Breaking Bad and the dilemma of doing something terrible to accomplish a noble objective. It was a great series for sure, but my favorite was by far FX's Justified, inspired by a set of Elmore Leonard characters, exploring the solidity of different bounds against the concepts of law and duty. The series is now over and I've been putting back my viewing of the final season because I simply refuse to live in a world where it's over. What I did though was read Elmore Leonard's 2012 novel RAYLAN, published at the height the the series' popularity, which raised all kinds of interesting questions.
RAYLAN is strongly inspired by Justified, but it's not a straight adaptation of the series. People familiar with the cast will recognize the storyline, but will appreciate the altered treatment by Elmore Leonard. There are three main stories: Raylan against the kidney thieves, Boyd working for the coal company and Jackie Nevada. If you're familiar with the series, I'm sure you know exactly what I'm talking about and I cannot think of anybody outside the fans of the series who would want to read this book. Honestly, I think it was written for the fans of the series anyway because Elmore Leonard lost very little time introducing characters or breaking down plot points. It's just a sweet companion piece to Graham Yost's glorious reinvention of Leonard's characters.
The problem with RAYLAN isn't the writing. It's bare, funny and has the uncanny sense of rhythm of Elmore Leonard. It was quite a kick to read his take on characters I love so much. No, the issue I have with this novel is that it kind of doesn't have a reason to exist. This is three story stumps wrapped up together in a more or less coherent manner. I don't doubt that Elmore Leonard had very little to do with the final product of RAYLAN, it was probably a legal nightmare to try and find a middle ground with the series, but in the end it is what it is: a novel that's not that fun to read. Someone thought it was a bad idea to make a new Raylan Givens novel and I don't think that person was Elmore Leonard.
It brings up an interesting question though: who do these characters belong to now, philosophically speaking? Are they forever Elmore Leonard's because he created them or did Graham Yost made them deeper than Leonard ever would? I know what most of you reading this think of Elmore Leonard as an untouchable but truth is, the characters on the page were different from those on the show. Boyd Crowder especially, one of my all-time favorites, who wasn't the larger-than-life presence he was on the show. I don't think these characters could've been created by anybody but the force of nature that is Elmore Leonard, but another great writer added several layers of complexity to them and it's fine. It's not theft or an aberration. These characters are so great because they are born out of a creative synergy.
Everybody loves Justified. Not everybody watched the series, but people who did universally loved it because the show featured the tightest written characters on television. The idea of a Raylan Givens novel written by legendary author and creator of the characters Elmore Leonard is seducing, but RAYLAN is not nearly as fun as it should be and I believe the reasons for it are more legal than creative. The series will survive father time and so will the cannon of Elmore Leonard's novels, so while it's not a disaster of a novel, I suggest you quietly pass your turn on the messy, underwhelming RAYLAN. Nobody's going to hold it against you.