An Author Feature from Speedy Metric
Some books are built through research. Others are built through imagination.
And then there are books that require a writer to spend years listening closely to another person's memories, language, personality, and way of telling a story.
That was the experience behind David S. Larson's work on The Last Jewish Gangster: The Middle Years, a book centered on Michael Hardy and his extraordinary account of his life.
When we reached out to David about the book's distinctive first-person voice, we were particularly interested in how he maintained Michael's vernacular without allowing his own editorial voice to take over.
His answer revealed that the process was about much more than simply reproducing the way someone spoke.
It was about knowing the person well enough to recognize when the voice was truly his.
Two and a Half Years of Listening
David spent every Wednesday afternoon, from 2 to 4 p.m., with Michael Hardy for approximately two and a half years.
That kind of sustained interaction gave David something that cannot easily be recreated through a short interview or a collection of notes: familiarity.
As David explained, after spending so much time with Hardy, it was almost as if he could channel him.
That familiarity extended beyond Hardy's thick Brooklyn accent.
David was struck by Hardy's remarkable recall of names, dates, times, addresses, phone numbers, and places. Those details helped establish a highly specific voice, but there was something deeper that David had to understand before he could fully tell Hardy's story.
It took almost six months before Hardy trusted him enough to reveal what David describes as his truth.
According to David, Hardy believed that everything he had done, including his criminal activities and years spent in prisons and jails, was ultimately connected to his desire to impress his mother and gain her love.
That revelation changed the depth of the story.
The Difference Between Hearing and Understanding
Writing someone's first-person story requires more than recording their words.
The writer has to understand how that person thinks, remembers, emphasizes, and relives experiences.
David's time with Hardy appears to have given him the opportunity to observe those distinctions closely.
He wasn't simply listening for vocabulary.
He was listening for how Hardy experienced his own memories.
That became especially important when David noticed something unusual about Hardy's relationship with time.
When the Past Becomes the Present
Perhaps the most fascinating observation David shared was Hardy's movement between past and present tense.
David explained that when Hardy recalled something, he spoke about it in the past tense.
But when Hardy relived something, he shifted into the present tense.
That difference became an important part of the narrative voice.
It meant that the change in tense was not simply an editorial decision. It reflected a change in how Hardy was experiencing the memory while telling it.
A memory being recalled belonged to the past.
A memory being relived suddenly felt immediate.
That distinction gave David a way to preserve something more meaningful than Hardy's vocabulary or accent. It allowed the writing to reflect the way Hardy himself moved through his memories.
David noted that literary agent Joel Gotler told him he had never read anything like it before.
Protecting the Voice Instead of Replacing It
One of the challenges of writing another person's story is knowing when to edit and when to step aside.
An editor can easily make a manuscript cleaner while unintentionally making the narrator sound less like himself.
David's experience with Hardy demonstrates why understanding the speaker can matter so much.
After years of conversations, David had developed a detailed sense of Hardy's speech patterns and memories. That familiarity helped him distinguish between his own writing instincts and Hardy's natural voice.
The goal was not simply to make the story sound polished.
It was to allow the person at the center of the story to remain recognizable on the page.
A Storyteller Who Could Hold an Audience
David also described Hardy as a consummate storyteller.
He recalled an occasion when Hardy held literary agent Joel Gotler's attention for approximately 40 minutes after David signed with Intellectual Artist Management.
That anecdote says something important about the person behind the book.
Hardy wasn't merely the subject of a story.
He was himself a storyteller.
His ability to hold someone's attention became part of the experience David had to translate into the book.
The challenge was therefore not just documenting what Hardy had experienced. It was capturing something about how Hardy told those experiences.
The Writer Behind the Story
David S. Larson's work extends beyond The Last Jewish Gangster: The Middle Years.
He is also the author of WEST: Journey Across the Plains, Mr. Meeks, and MAYDAY! A Collection of Short Stories. His work has also included editing and screenwriting.
That broader experience provides useful context for understanding the craft behind The Last Jewish Gangster.
The book required David to work closely with a distinctive subject and preserve a voice that was deeply connected to the person telling the story.
His experience with Hardy shows that sometimes the most important part of writing another person's story is not adding more of the writer's own voice.
It is learning when to let the subject's voice lead.
What Makes the Voice of The Last Jewish Gangster Distinctive?
David's explanation points to three elements that shaped the book's narrative voice:
Time.
Two and a half years of regular conversations created a deep familiarity between writer and subject.
Trust.
Important personal revelations only emerged after Hardy had developed enough confidence in David to speak openly.
Memory.
The distinction between recalling an event and reliving it became visible through Hardy's movement between past and present tense.
Together, those elements helped David preserve something highly personal in the storytelling.
The result is not simply a book about Michael Hardy.
It is a book in which readers can encounter the story through a voice David spent years learning to understand.
Discover More Author Stories
Behind every book is a process that readers rarely get to see.
Sometimes that process involves research. Sometimes it involves years of writing alone. And sometimes, as David's experience demonstrates, it involves sitting across from another person week after week until you understand not only what they are saying, but how they remember it.
At Speedy Metric, we are interested in bringing those stories closer to readers.
Our author features give writers an opportunity to share the creative decisions, experiences, and perspectives behind their books while giving readers another way to discover authors and the work they have created.
If you're interested in books and the stories behind them, explore more author features on Speedy Metric.
About David S. Larson
David S. Larson is the author of The Last Jewish Gangster: The Middle Years, WEST: Journey Across the Plains, Mr. Meeks, and MAYDAY! A Collection of Short Stories. His work also includes editing and screenwriting.
Author website:
David S. Larson's Author Website
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