The writer who roars and purrs
Leonard Wibberley in his Hermosa Beach home in 1975. Editor’s note: the following interview first appeared in the February 27, 1975 issue of Easy Reader. Wibberley died in 1982. “I’m not a fashionable writer, and I’m not a successful writer. And I don’t particularly care,” said Leonard Wibberly, author of “The Mouse That Roared” and over 50 other books. “But if I bore someone, then I’m crushed. “I’m so hurt I get enraged if I feel I’m criticized unfairly. And I get childishly elated if a critic praises my work. This upsets my emotional balance, which I must have under control to work. So I tell my publishers never to send me reviews.” Having made a living writing what he chooses for the past 20-odd years, earning comparisons to Swift for his satire and to Hemingway for his short novels, one could take issue with Wibberly’s assertion of being unsuccessful. Wibberly is dogmatic, reclusive and unlike most writers of the day, obsessed with craftsmanship. Except for the fact that he appears to prefer making violins to writing, and that what remains of the hair on his head sticks straight up over his bald dome like the horns of the helmet of a knight from the Duchy of Grand Fenwick…
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