Review 630: Picket Line

Picket Line: The Lost Novella by Elmore Leonard
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I have not read any of Elmore Leonard’s books before, so this may be an odd place to start. He has an extensive bibliography mostly in a genre I don’t read, so maybe this is a good place to start. The introduction covers how this novella came to be published, and a bit of history of the piece, which was first written for the screen.

What appealed to me was the labor aspect. I tend towards work fiction in a way, and this one covers that, with a union and a strike. The workplace here is a melon field in Texas, the workers Spanish speaking maybe migrants. Since there is a strike some of the pickers have different people in the field, such as a young white college kid. The story opens with three guys driving in from California.

Even though the book is short, there lacks depth of character, not much development. Perhaps there were too many characters. I’ve read shorter pieces with better understanding of a character. In any case, this did feel too short. There was some action, but it ended too soon. The story felt like a moment in a larger story.


Thanks to Mariner Books and NetGalley for an uncorrected electronic advance review copy of this book. However, I listened to a published audiobook copy of the book.