Dennis McMillan published this tribute to our pal Charles Willeford in 1997 — we once calculated that the print run was 2773 hardcover copies, more or less, about three times Dennis’ typical print runs of 1000 copies. Now out-of-print, you ought to be able to track down copies on ABEbooks or Amazon and other venues easily, for awhile. Features a biographical/critical section, a long interview done at random during a visit I made to Miami where I cleaned out Willeford’s stash of boxes in his garage, which led to the third part of the book: the most thorough bibliography of his publications ever printed (and by the way, some of the funniest moments in the book are “hidden” in the bibliography).
The thrust of the book is that you meet Willeford as I meet Willeford, and unlike many of the web commentators on him and his work, I actually knew him — this led to a nice review Richard A. Lupoff once sent in an email, where he said that Willeford is the only biography of a writer he had ever read where there was no “wall” between him as reader and the subject of the biography as a person. Usually the author of a biography never knew the subject, and works at second and third-hand from print and interview sources. Okay as far as it goes, but Dennis and I figured we could do better.
