Joseph Wambaugh Interview: “No More Books”

By Grand Rapids Anonymous
tuesday, november 15, 2022 at 11:05:00 p.m. est

(San Diego Tribune)

Fall arts 2019 | Books: At 82, Joseph Wambaugh may be done writing, but his influence endures

Joseph Wambaugh laughed at the question.

“‘Am I done writing?’ he said. ‘Hell, I’m almost done living. I’m 82.’”

[GRA: Three years later—still around.]

“His last book, Harbor Nocturne, came out in 2012. It was the fifth of his “Hollywood Station” novels, full of the bawdy insider cop talk that first made him famous and populated with memorably quirky characters like the badge-wearing surfers ‘Flotsam’ and ‘Jetsam.’ A couple of TV studios are looking at turning the books into a series.

“‘I’d be thrilled to see that happen before I kick the bucket,’ he said.

“This is not the first time Wambaugh has seemingly stopped writing. He went six years in between Floaters, a 1996 novel set in San Diego during the America’s Cup, and Fire Lover, a 2002 non-fiction account of a serial arsonist. And then it was another four years before he published Hollywood Station. But then he wrote four more novels, all in a period of six years.

“So it seems like a fair question: Maybe some story will come along that moves him to add to his catalog?

“‘Not this geezer,’ he said.

“Even if he is done, his influence will continue. Legions of crime novelists in San Diego and elsewhere cite Wambaugh among their earliest influences. That’s because he broke the mold, moved police officers from the Dragnet realm of clean-cut heroes into the real world of complicated, flawed human beings.

“‘All I did was turn things around,’ he said. ‘Instead of writing about how cops worked the job, I wrote about how the job worked on the cops.’”

--GRA