Don Carpenter

[1] He wrote numerous novels, novellas, short stories and screenplays over the course of a 22-year career that took him from a childhood in Berkeley, California and the Pacific Northwest to the corridors of power and ego in Hollywood.

A close observer of human frailty, his writing depicted marginal characters like pool sharks, prisoners and drug dealers, as well as movie moguls and struggling actors.

Although lauded by critics and fellow writers, Carpenter's novels and stories never reached a mass audience and he supported himself with extensive work for Hollywood.

During his time in the service, Carpenter was a writer for the military newspaper Stars and Stripes, where he met musician and cartoonist Shel Silverstein.

At the time of his death, Carpenter was working on a novel called Fridays at Enrico's, which was finished by Jonathan Lethem and published in 2014 by Counterpoint Press.

Don Carpenter's first novel, Hard Rain Falling, was reissued by New York Review Books as part of its Classics series, with an introduction by George Pelecanos.