Little, Eddie 1956(?)-2003

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LITTLE, Eddie 1956(?)-2003

PERSONAL: Born c. 1956; died of a heart attack, May 20, 2003, in Los Angeles, CA.

CAREER: Writer. We Care (nonprofit organization), Los Angeles, CA, former staff member.

WRITINGS:

Another Day in Paradise (novel), Viking (New York, NY), 1998.

Steel Toes (novel; sequel to Another Day in Paradise), LA Weekly Book/St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 2001.

Contributor of essays to LA Weekly and British magazine Loaded.

ADAPTATIONS: Another Day in Paradise was adapted for a film directed by Larry Clark and starring James Woods, Melanie Griffith, Vincent Kartheiser, and Natasha Wagner.

SIDELIGHTS: Described as a cross between the plots of Gus Van Sant's film Drugstore Cowboy, Jim Carroll's The Basketball Diaries, and Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, Eddie Little's debut novel, Another Day in Paradise, is a first-person narrative of the downward spiral of a teenaged criminal named Bobbie. The novel is based on Little's life experiences. "I originally wrote this years ago when I was in prison," he once revealed in an online Barnes and Noble interview. "It evolved and took on its own life." Little served time for armed robbery and grand larceny, and died in his mid-forties in 2003.

When he was twelve years old, Little ran away from his abusive father and got involved in crime and drugs, eventually landing in prison. How much of his life is reflected in his debut novel is not clear, but Little once admitted that "for what I write about there is not a statute of limitations." His character Bobbie Prine is a fourteen-year-old, small-time thief who specializes in robbing vending machines, stealing car stereos, and using intravenous drugs. Bobbie, along with his seventeen-year-old girlfriend, Rosie, becomes influenced by a pair of older professional criminals, Mel and Syd, and the two couples embark on a cross-country crime spree that kicks off with breaking into a pharmaceutical company to steal pills. Heroin and murder raise the stakes in "an ever-tightening spiral to hell," according to Library Journal critic Andrea Lee Shuey. A Publishers Weekly critic, who called Another Day in Paradise "gripping," nonetheless pointed out that "some of Bobbie's observations are a bit highfalutin' for an uneducated 14-year-old." New York Times Book Review contributor Steve Weinstein compared Little's "hopped-up writing style" to those of fellow drug and crime aficionados Hunter S. Thompson and William Burroughs, "conveying in staccato fashion the rushes and crashes of drug addiction, leaving readers as strung out as Bobbie waiting for his next fix."

In the Barnes and Noble interview, Little cited such literary influences as Charles Bukowski, Robert A. Heinlein, Elmore Leonard, Larry McMurtry, James Lee Burke, and James Ellroy. "I have written as long as I can remember, written and read compulsively," he explained, pointing out that he brings a unique perspective to his subject matter. "What I write about is not just the mechanics of a burglary or what happens when somebody ODs but what it feels like, so if you want to know what it feels like, I am a good guy to read."

In 2001 Little's sequel to Another Day in Paradise was published. Steel Toes picks up with Bobbie Prine in jail, but the small-time hood soon amends that situation by orchestrating a daring prison break. Free again, he returns to his criminal ways. Opportunity takes Bobbie to Boston, where he joins a crime gang and becomes involved in a potentially lucrative theft of rare coins. The plan falls apart, however, when the buyer dies and Bobbie is left without a way to market the coins. The gang now seeks revenge against him for the failed robbery, resulting in a bloodbath. A Publishers Weekly critic considered the beginning of Steel Toes to be "flat and derivative" and complained about the "gratuitous violence and some silly romantic subplots." Booklist reviewer Carrie Bissey, however, praised the author's "realistic, rapid-fire dialogue," and a contributor to Kirkus Reviews regarded the novel as a guilty pleasure: "You shouldn't like this stuff, but it's such a rush." Despite some criticism for Little's second novel, the writer for Publishers Weekly anticipated that his "critical reputation" would grow with time. Unfortunately, Little would never fulfil this promise, dying from a heart attack in 2003.