Literary Figures: Novelists

Mystery writer Donald Westlake has written 70 novels and screenplays (including "The Grifters" and "The Stepfather"). He is known for his novels which combine laughs with thrills, and which show equally incompetent criminals and law enforcement. His recurring characters include a bungling burglar named John Dortmunder, and a gun-for-hire named Parker. Westlake has also written novels that parody the world of publishing and supermarket tabloids. His latest novel is a crime novel about downsizing, "The Ax" (Mysterious Press/Warner Books)

Russo gained critic's recognition for his portrayal of life in a declining upstate New York mill town with his novels Mohawk and The Risk Pool. His latest novel His book "Nobody's Fool" was adapted into a film starring Paul Newman. His latest novel is "Straight Man." It is published by Random House.

Smith is the author of the book "Private Matters," about our contradictory ideas about privacy. She's the daughter of novelist Bernard Malamud.

Steve Lopez was an award-winning columnist for the "Philadelphia Inquirer" for twelve years. In his novels, Lopez confronts political corruption and greed as he did in his columns. His new novel is called "The Sunday Macaroni Club" (Harcourt Brace and Company). Lopez is now Senior Writer-at-large for Time Magazine.

Author Mark Behr talks about his experience spying on his peers as a college student for the South African government and his subsequent public confession of his actions. His novel "The Smell of Apples" (Picador USA) is the story of a young boy growing up in South Africa at the time of apartheid and it explains how a person could be convinced that apartheid is a morally legitimate form of government.

Moody's work has been compared to Cheever and Updike. His latest novel is "Purple America" (Little, Brown & Co.). His previous novel "The Ice Storm" has been made into a film which just won the best screenplay adaption award at the Cannes Film Festival.

We talk with three of Scotland's most prominent writers: Irvine Welsh is the author of "Trainspotting" which was recently adapted into a movie. James Kelman won the prestigious Booker Prize for his 1994 novel "How Late It Was, How Late." and Duncan McLean is the author of "Bunker Man." The writers talk about their backgrounds and their careers.

Dorris died last week at the age of 52. In 1989, He won a National Book Critics Circle award for The Broken Cord. A first person account of how fetal alcohol syndrome affected his oldest son, Abel, who later died. He and his wife, Louise Erdrich, wrote several novels together, including Love Medicine, The Crown of Columbus and Yellow Raft in Blue Water. Both are part Native American, and Dorris spent several years of his childhood on an Indian reservation. In January, his new novel Cloud Chamber was published by Scribner Books.

The novelist and screenwriter's is new book "The Dogs of Winter" is the story of a photographer who hopes to jumpstart his career by capturing pictures of surfers on California's most dangerous waters.

Ballard's novels often deal with the changes affected by modern science and technology. His novel "Crash" relates these changes to sexually-deviant behavior. The book has been made into a movie by filmmaker David Cronenberg and won an award at the 1996 Cannes Film Festiival. Ballard also wrote the books "Empire of the Sun" and "Concrete Island," among others.