The Knicks made a habit of stressing me out this June. In Game Four of the NBA Finals, they did this thing where they shat the bed and allowed 76 points in the first half, then decided they wanted to claw their way back. A 29-point deficit became 20, then 10, then 5. By the time OG Anunoby miraculously tipped the ball in with 1.2 seconds left, giving the Knicks a 106-105 lead and securing the largest comeback in Finals history, I was about ready to rip my hair out.
The game, and New York, were on hyperdrive. Madison Square Garden was rocking, and I was standing in the middle of an East Village street, shoulder to shoulder with people I’d never met and will never see again, watching the Knicks projected onto the side of a building.
There wasn’t time to think. I wasn’t sure what I’d just witnessed until long after Anunoby’s game-winner. Maybe there was a little partying between the win and the reflection, but that doesn’t seem so important.
Elmore Leonard’s 1990 novel “Get Shorty” is the same: written with such velocity that you’re forced to keep up. It’s a quintessential Leonard book — as the master of crime dialogue, no one really understands momentum like he does. “Get Shorty” is a thesis in confidence.
Leonard immediately launches five hyper-connected plotlines, weaving them together so intricately that losing one thread means losing the novel.
The plot follows Chili Palmer, a Miami loan shark who’s tired of watching his friends die. So he ditches Miami for Hollywood to collect a debt from a deadbeat client.
Palmer comes to Los Angeles because Leo Devoe owes money, which somehow means he’s standing in Harry Zimm’s living room at four in the morning pitching a movie. Zimm’s in a real spot — he gambled away the money he was given to get a movie made, so now he’s putting everything on Palmer to push his weird idea, “Lovejoy,” over the line and into production. This isn’t an anti-gambling ad, by the way. I think you should do what you want with your money.
In the midst of all this, Palmer decides to mess around and pitch his own life story as a screenplay. At the same time, mobster Ray Bones is barreling toward Los Angeles to settle a score from 10 years ago. Karen Flores also exists. Palmer is chasing her — less violently.
You see what I mean? A lot of stuff is going on.
And it’s all great stuff. Leonard has a glut of material, but there is way too much genius for one book to hold. His talent makes certain characters suffer on the page.
Bo Catlett is emblematic of that suffering. Remember the guy Zimm owed money to? That’s Catlett, a ruthless drug trafficker and low-budget movie producer in Los Angeles. He’s supposed to be Palmer’s foil, and he’s built up as such. The pair rises simultaneously; if Palmer makes a move, Catlett makes a move of his own.
But Leonard makes Palmer so effortlessly competent that there is no space left for Catlett to be Catlett. He is constantly judged by comparison: whatever Catlett can do, Palmer can do better. He’s a good character, but Leonard lets Palmer out-charm and outsmart him at every turn. By the end, Catlett just deflates. Palmer doesn’t even have to lay a finger on him — ultimately, he weaponizes Catlett’s own henchman against him.
Catlett’s failure isn’t his own fault — it’s Leonard’s. He was written to lose: there wasn’t enough space to see him win. Great writers don’t always leave us wanting more from great characters for lack of ideas. It’s the opposite: they have too many. Because Palmer gets the luxury he deserves, Catlett’s character is the price Leonard pays for everything else working so well.
Catlett isn’t the only character who’s paid this price. Fredo Corleone, for example, gets the same treatment throughout “The Godfather” franchise. Because Michael needs to be Michael (doesn’t that sound familiar!), his brother gradually fades into the background. Draco Malfoy suffers something similar across the “Harry Potter” books. Built up as Harry’s real counterpart from book one, he’s quickly reduced to comic menace once Voldemort and Dumbledore demand space.
And yes, before you ask, “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” follows suit. Rowley has his own talent, his own ideas and arguably a better heart than our sociopathic friend Greg, but we only get him secondhand through Greg’s eyes.
Every story is an exercise in omission. We have all these great ideas, and naturally, we want to hang on to them because they’re ours. We want to give every character or every conversation the attention they deserve.
What you keep and what you omit is a bargain every writer eventually has to make. Maybe you’ve experienced it yourself. No one has unlimited pages; at least, no one wants to read that. Every scene, conversation and character competes for the same finite space.
Space is a commodity. I hate math, but writing is math. Every five lines you spend on one character is five lines you can’t spend on another. You have to make your own calculations and kill your darlings.
Maybe that’s why I couldn’t appreciate the Knicks’ comeback until it was over. There was just no time to think. “Get Shorty” doesn’t give you much time either.
The Spurs ran out of answers. Leonard just runs out of pages.
The next time I watch a Knicks game, I hope they’re up by 40.
Otto Fritton PZ ’27, unfortunately dubbed “OF” by his close friends, is an avid Peanuts fan. He finds Charles M. Schulz’s portrayal of Charlie Brown and the Little Red-Haired Girl fantastic — the perfect example of unrequited love. He wonders if Charlie will ever truly succeed, and suspects that’s exactly the point.
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