My favorite writer is Andrew Vachss. Talk about a truly no-bullshit guy. His statements go right to the heart of the subject like a laser. I am unaccustomed to hearing things expressed so bluntly, with such directness and force. I find it bracing, refreshing, inspirational. We are so accustomed to hearing mealy-mouthed prevarications and double-talk from just about everyone in the media, social or otherwise, that I find it invigorating to hear a man speak clearly and forcefully.

His writing contains an extraordinary combination of strength and compassion. That’s what comes through for me when I read Vachss: his compassion for the damaged and the dregs of our society. His writing is hard-boiled but with enormous heart. One is never searching for a moral compass in his books. It’s right there, upfront, usually in the form of “Burke” tossing a truly heinous creep off a building, or driving over them with a car. See? Toughness and compassion. Toughness because his characters are willing to do extremely rough things, and compassion because of the reasons they are getting rough. The violence is never gratuitous in a Vachss novel. He is an extremely moral writer.

Vachss is our titan, still going strong in the 21st century, and rather under-appreciated, in my estimation. The mainstream is perhaps scared off by his unflinching look at the most disturbing of subjects like child sex abuse, incest, and whatnot, but no other author can touch him, in my opinion.

I’ve never met him. He has responded to a few of my posts on-line. I find him intimidating. Even when he is in agreement with me, it almost feels like an upbraiding! Maybe that’s just the New Yorker in him, I don’t know. He was the same way with Oprah when he was on her show.(lol) I do know that he’s had a tremendous influence on me as a writer. And, more importantly, as a person. He makes me strive to be a better man. (How many other writers can you say the same of?) But his writing is an influence to this day. When I was writing Stone Hotel I tried to be as lean as Vachss. Someone once said of Vachss that he writes paragraphs that are “as spare and lean as a haiku.” Well, that stuck with me. Some of the most admired aspects of Stone Hotel are the short sketches of fellow inmates—exactly the poems that were most influenced by Andrew Vachss. (Also “1,000 Ways To Die” by Henry Rollins. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that. Henry Rollins is another no-bullshit guy for whom I have enormous respect.) My goal was to capture the one defining trait of each of my fellow cons in prison and get it down on paper in as few words as possible. (I was also influenced by 88 lines about 44 women, remember that song? Lots of different influences go into making up a poem!) But Vachss has influenced my prose just as much. I try not to use too much verbiage, to be terse, stripped-down.


I credit some of my ability to survive prison to having read Vachss books before I went down. No shit. Specifically, Ghost’s experiences in Shella, but lots of Burke and Cross stuff too. I knew before going to prison what a lot of the predators’ scams and approaches would be, and I was able to avoid them for having been forewarned. Also the books of Edward Bunker (especially Animal Factory) served the same function; so I was armored, reinforced, with Bunker and Vachss! Not a bad combination to keep you alive in the penitentiary. See? Books are priceless.