That he went from hardcore criminal and convict to Hollywood guy, even acting in Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs as Mr. Blue, with roles in other movies like the remake of The Longest Yard, intrigued me and gave me a goal to shoot for when I was released from prison. I emulated Bunker by writing about the life I was living and telling the stories of the people around me.
“There is no question he took his wild-ass life of crime and struggle and the parade of maniacs he met along the way and mined them for his books,” Jerry Stahl, the author of Permanent Midnight: A Memoir, tells me. “My question would be, what things from his own history did he have to leave out of his books? Whether because there was no statute of limitations, or it was just too dark for the squares to hear.”
Ayers, whose own novel is being made into a film, South of Sodom, recalls how Dog Eat Dog blistered his eyeballs and peeled a few layers off his fingertips as he turned the pages. “It was an at once electric confirmation of what I wanted to do with my own writing,” Ayers says. “And a humbling reminder not to posture about things I do not know – I felt exposed as a fraud.” Because unlike most writers, Bunker lived the words he wrote.
“It’s the ultimate escape for any artist who’s lived a dangerous life,” Stahl says. “To be able to make a score off of telling people stories, instead of having to re-live them. I always say I did the research, I just didn’t know it was research at the time. I love all Bunker’s books, but my favourite may be No Beast So Fierce. Not ’cause it’s the best – that might be Education of a Felon – but because it’s the rawest.
“It’s almost like you can feel the white-hot bite of desperation in each sentence. You read with the knowledge that this was Ed’s ticket out of ‘The Life’ – even though it was about a man who could never ultimately get out himself. I love books where the author beats the odds, not just by writing, but by surviving. You just know, every word in the book was fucking earned.”
His career as a writer and actor qualify Edward Bunker to go down as a literary and ex-con success story – an inspiration for those who want a second chance.
Article Appeared @https://www.gorillaconvict.com/2018/03/the-ex-con-novelist-who-played-mr-blue-in-reservoir-dogs/