Table of Contents...
Table of Contents...
PONCE (Ketchup Karma) in France?
DOWN ON PONCE - About the Book
Atlanta as a Setting for Fiction
Fred Willard - a Short Biography
News Flash!
No Exit Press in the UK has purchased Fred Willard's second novel, PRINCESS NAUGHTY AND THE VOODOO CADILLAC. Release information will be posted here when it is available.
Recent Short Fiction
"The Ghosts of Ponce de Leon Park," a short story by Fred Willard, appears in Crime Time 2.2.
"Shopkeeper's Daughters" appears in Crime Time 2.4 and has been translated to French by Nathalie Mege for Polar Magazine.
An excerpt from DOWN ON PONCE can be found be found in the online version of The Edge.
Amazing but true, the people of the United Kingdom can now vicariously experience Ponce de Leon Avenue in all its strange and peculiar majesty. DOWN ON PONCE has been released by No Exit Press in the UK.
It was nominated for the John Creasey Memorial Dagger, best first novel, by the Crime Writers Association
No Exit has also bought a second novel, PRINCESS NAUGHTY AND THE VOODOO CADILLAC. Release information will be posted here when available.
Read
The Times of London review of Down on Ponce.
Ponce
in
France?
The French edition of DOWN ON PONCE ( called KETCHUP KARMA ) has been released in France by Fleuve Noir. I gave Ms. Nathalie Mege, translator extraordinary, the grand tour of Ponce de Leon including a delicious meal at the Majestic Diner and also introduced her to such cultural landmarks as Blastoff Video in Little Five Points.
It was a lot of fun watching her reactions to the people and places you'll find in the novel. The depth of her research, her insights into the cultural nuances and her talents as a translator have produced a French version of striking authenticity.
I am most interested to see what the people of France will make of all
this.
DOWN ON PONCE - about the book
DOWN ON PONCE by Fred Willard, Longstreet, $12:00, ISBN1-56352-431-7
Cracker Noir
Sam Fuller is a retired marijuana smuggler who has never figured out if it was a bomb or just a leaking gas line that blew up his boat, nearly drowned him and killed his closest friends. He did know that the Colombians were ruthlessly rolling over independent gangs, making it a good time for him to leave town -- especially since he was still alive, but... officially dead.
After digging up his crew's small fortune buried in plastic trash bags in the palmetto scrub, he ran like hell up the Florida coast, feeling like the Angel of Death was about to tap his shoulder for a dance. As the book opens, we find him living in happy retirement, hanging around a run down Lake Lanier marina and playing pool at a local bar.
When a man offers him $30,000 to kill his wife, a fatal series of events leads Fuller to go into hiding on Atlanta's Ponce de Leon Avenue. Called "Ponce" by locals, it is a haven for the homeless, the lawless and the restless.
Fuller realizes that he is accidentally involved in the disintegrating operation of a Dixie mob boss, Billy "Dong" Chandler, and a struggle for control between Chandler and the respectable businessmen who have been laundering his money. Fuller sees the situation as being like a large boulder teetering on a cliff, a light touch being enough to send it over the edge.
He knows that Chandler must have an enormous cache of money hidden somewhere, and he wants to do the right thing -- steal it.
While the "pros" are busy killing each other, he assembles a crew of hopeless characters who are down by law, down for the count and just plain down. Men who know they are human discards -- a rockabilly ex-con... an escapee from a federal mental hospital... and two disabled street people. One can't walk. The other (missing half his face) can't speak. But they have one common goal: to find the money and use it to change their lives.
Together, they mount a frantic chase that careens between the twisted, the brutal, the slapstick, the surreal, the tough and the serene -- and hurtles toward the death of a mad man and the recovery of an illegal fortune.
Yes, there is going to be a film of DOWN ON PONCE. The rights have been purchased by Cairo/Simpson Productions and the film is in active development.
Michael Simpson is directing and has writen the screenplay. I have spoken to him at length, and have confidence it will be an excellent film which captures the spirit of the novel.
I'm very pleased the film will be made on Ponce by people with a feeling for the area.
DOWN ON PONCE has received a number of nice mentions and reviews both on the net (dorothy-l, rec.arts.mystery, misc.writing, amazon.com) and in print (Denver Post, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Atlanta Constitution, The Times, of London, Publishers Weekly).
Some of my favorites include:
Quotes and comments about DOWN ON PONCE.
"Hold your breath - Fred Willard's dazzling debut novel, DOWN ON PONCE is a roller coaster ride through an underworld filled with wonderfully skewed characters, as dangerous as they are perverse, whiplash dialogue that will have you laughing out loud, and more twists than a hangman's noose. Willard's hard-boiled, hilarious and harrowing page turner deserves a standing ovation."- Bill Diehl author of SHOW OF EVIL and PRIMAL FEAR
"Fred Willard can write good. He can also write funny. He does both in DOWN ON PONCE, which you will find real hard to put down. Trust me." - Stuart Woods, author of DEAD IN THE WATER
"DOWN ON PONCE fairly vibrates with wit, style and energy: Fred Willard at the typewriter is a lot like Jerry Lee Lewis at the piano. Willard knows people, has a keen sense of timing, and writes with a sure hand. This book is certain to leave readers waiting with bated breath to see what he will write next." - Rosemary Daniell, author of FATAL FLOWERS, SLEEPING WITH SOLDIERS and THE WOMAN WHO SPILLED WORDS ALL OVER HERSELF
"DOWN ON PONCE is Fred Willard's sassy, sardonic take on the crime novel genre. Heads up to all Elmore Leonard fans."- Richard Dooling, author of CRITICAL CARE, WHITE MAN"S GRAVE, and BLUE STREAK
"What a relief! Fred Willard's DOWN ON PONCE is a mighty fine
tonic for all the soft-boiled weak-ass namby-pamby cafe-latte crime novels
that have been weighing down my bookshelves lately. More fun than a screwdriver
in the eye socket." - Walter Sorrells, EdgarAward-nominated author of
POWER OF ATTORNEY and CRY FOR JUSTICE
Author's Note From DOWN ON PONCE
Ponce de Leon Avenue, called Ponce by locals, is a haven for the homeless,
the lawless and the restless located in Atlanta, Georgia - a city that
may be too busy to hate, but isn't above taking a little time off to steal.
Atlanta as a setting for fiction.
I recently read THE TEMPLE BOMBING by Melissa Fay Greene. It's a remarkable piece of reporting on the bombing in 1958 of The Temple, Atlanta's leading Reform Synagogue, and the people and events which surrounded it.
The personalities and groups involved included Jacob Rothschild, the Temple's outspoken Rabbi, smart street cops, Ralph McGill, the Pulitzer Prize winning newspaper editor, George Lincoln Rockwell, American Nazi, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., the Klan, Reuban A. Garland, a flamboyant lawyer given to wearing electric-blue silk suits, The National States Rights Party, and a crowd of cracker bomb throwers who hung out on a street close to where I live, Ponce de Leon Avenue ( AKA Ponce).
Sounds like a wild-ass city to me.
An obstacle to understanding Atlanta is that many visitors don't have a clear idea where it is. They visit a friend in the suburbs, drive to a mall and go home convinced Atlanta is nothing but suburbs and malls.
If you really want to get a sense of the city itself, you have to drive to the city, park your car, put the shoe leather to the pavement, and boogie on down the road.
I'd like to recommend the following walking tour to skeptics. Park somewhere around Mary Macs on Ponce de Leon Ave., about three blocks from Peachtree. Walk East down Ponce toward Decatur. Stop and speak to everyone you meet. When you get to the Briarcliff Hotel on North Highland, cross the street to the Plaza and walk back.
By the time you get to your car, you'll have all the information you need to write a novel about homeless people living in community, the treatment of aids, hustlers, hookers, burrito rollers, flame thrower guitar bands, boneheads, bong heads, base heads, winos, all night diners, sports bar chicken wings... you name it. Never again will you say, "Atlanta is a city of suburbs and malls."
PLEASE READ THIS WARNING: This area can be very dangerous, even fatal, particularly after dark. This is not a joke. If you're not hip to the avenue, there are other places and other stories.
For instance, you can head out North Druid Hills to Cross Keys HighSchool. (Check out the first of the next section - a short bio).
I grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, and have lived here much of my life. I went to Cross Keys High School, then the center of redneck gang activity, now the center of Asian gang activity.
After attending Brown University, I was amazed to discover a way I could get paid to attend riots, fires, shoot-outs, natural disasters and murders. I became a news photographer.
During this period, I also developed the hobby of talking to boneheads in bars and other locations of similar social stature.
In 1989, I realized that I wasn't just talking to boneheads -- I had become one, so, I got clean and sober. This was good.
Unfortunately, somewhat after this, I became disabled with arthritis. This was bad.
During the long, painful months it took to control the disease, I turned to writing as a way to stay occupied. I continued to work at it as my health and mobility improved, and eventually wrote Down on Ponce. This was very good.
While it pays to be cautious about sweeping declarations, I took this willingness to make adversity work for me as a sign I may be getting smarter.
The book is fiction. But in a sense, it could be a memoir, because it reflects a world I spent a decade and a half bouncing around in. (The extensive research was entertaining, but I'm not planning on doing any more of it.)
I'm married to Brianne Beesley Willard, another Cross Keys survivor,and we have a daughter, Elizabeth Rainbow Willard, who is a student at Tulane University.
I live in downtown Atlanta, two blocks from Ponce and I'm working on my second novel.
I've never appeared on Fernwood Tonight."
Favorite
Links
Not organized, not categorized, just cyber-spots that have caught my
fancy... and bent it.
Steve Williams is an extremely talented Atlanta area photographer who took this picture while on assignment for Style Atlanta Magazine. It was lit entirely with available light, including the headlights from his van. The location is the landmark Majestic Diner on Ponce de Leon Avenue.
The hand holding the telephone is Jim Henderson. Jim is also a photographer and fire fighter.
Design and Content Copyright © Fred Willard 1997.
All Written Material at this Site Copyright ©Fred Willard 1997.
