Elmore Leonard was one of those great pulp writers who helped create modern fiction and along the way taught many writers how to write. Like the best in any “genre,” he proved that genre doesn’t matter, only quality. Whether you’re writing about cowboys or bank robbers or astronauts or superheroes or ennui-laden academics fucking around on their wives and feeling really really uncertain and depressed while they wash the dishes, the content isn’t what’s important, it’s the skill and insight and art that the writer brings to the tale.
Rest easy, Dutch.
Under An Outlaw Moon 
Any author that has, “Frogs of Doom” in their title is worthy of a re-blog. Here is one of the nicest Elmore Leonard tributes I have seen all day: WHAT ELMORE LEONARD TAUGHT US by Tim Byrd
I love your line: “ennui-laden academics fucking around on their wives and feeling really really uncertain and depressed while they wash the dishes,” It really encapsulates a whole genre.
SHHH. We’re not supposed to realize that that’s a genre.
:)
Laconic. Pithy. Quirky. Bizarro. All words that apply to Leonard’s fiction as well as most of the other writers I invest my time in from Bukowski to Lansdale.