Don Herron

Herron's biography of Willeford is not very conventional, since Willeford himself was rather flexible with facts about his life, even when writing autobiographical material. Willeford and his wife Betsy joined Herron's Dashiell Hammett tour in San Francisco one day in (I believe) 1984. Willeford told Herron he was an author, but Herron had barely heard of him. A friend had mentioned the recently released Miami Blues--Willeford's breakthrough novel at age 65+! In any case, Herron soon became show more friends with Willeford and had the difficult but rewarding task of cleaning out Willeford's garage under the author's supervision and discovering things thought to be long lost from Willeford's writing career. If you are a Willeford fan--and you should be--this book is pretty priceless. It covers all of Willeford's writing career, although you won't always agree with Herron's (or even Willeford's) assessments. It also includes about a hundred pages of taped conversations that are quite interesting and a detailed bibliography of the various editions and permutation of Willeford's published output, most of which is thankfully available in one form or another--but not all. If you are uninitiated to Willeford, get to know him a bit before digging into this. Start with Pick-Up, The Black Mass of Brother Springer, Cockfighter, or perhaps Miami Blues. Enjoy. show less

I bought this book in the 1980s probably and have never forgotten that I have it in my library. It is one of those gems I wish I could find time to use again. The book provides walking tours of San Francisco and nearby sites which have some literary interest or significance. It is published by City Lights Books which I think is an interesting and worthwhile site on its own. I think one can learn a great deal about San Francisco with this one guide book.