Reader Voice: Elmore Leonard: A Picket Line That Fails
Harold Phillips | Published on 1/24/2026
Responding to our recent post about Picket Line, Elmore Leonard’s recently re-discovered novella, reader Paul Gottlieb writes: “I would not recommend this book to anyone with an abiding, even a passing interest in unions. While I've never spent any time in the fields with farmworker organizers, I have helped to organize a local union or two. And I don't believe that Chavez or Dolores Huerta or any experienced organizer would try to get people to stop picking and join a strike line by making fun of them, calling them names in public, as one of the organizers does repeatedly. Better to spend time with a writer who actually cares about the people and the issues.”
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