Picket Line by Elmore Leonard

Published by Mariner Books on Sept. 30, 2025

Picket Line is a “lost” novella. A longer-than-necessary introduction explains the story’s history. Envisioned as a screenplay, Elmore Leonard wrote a prose version of the plot in 1970 and eventually turned that document into a novella. After several collaborative attempts to market the story as a movie (including brief interest from Clint Eastwood, who wanted to tell a different story), Leonard sold the novella to an online startup that folded before it could be published.

As the introduction explains, the novella begins with “a memorable opening scene depicting the Rojas brothers’ altercation with a racist gas station attendant.” The gas station employee explains his boss’ refusal to allow migrants to use the restrooms: “They go in there mess up the place, piss all over, take a bath in the sink, use all the towels, steal the toilet paper, man, it’s like a bunch of pigs were in there.” With a subtle threat that doesn’t quite invoke violence, Paco and Chino persuade the employee to allow a family of migrant workers to use the facilities.

Paco and Chino are from California. Paco is Francisco Rojas. Chino is Francisco de la Cruz, an ex-con with a grudge against the white power structure that denies opportunities to Mexican Americans. The introduction suggests that Chino was originally modeled on Cesar Chavez.

For reasons that are initially obscure, Paco and Chino are driving to Texas. When they’re stopped by a deputy sheriff, they claim that they plan to get work picking melons. The cop tells them they might get jobs at Stanzik Farms, although some of the migrant farmworkers are on strike. They take the Stanzik job, but Chino’s true goal is to meet someone he knew from his time in prison.

The labor leader who organized the strike is Vincent Mora, a character who takes over the Cesar Chavez role in later drafts of the story. Mora turns out to have a hidden past, one that might paint him as a man of peace or a coward, or both.

Other important characters include: Bud Davis, an Anglo making a half-hearted attempt at melon picking, who “with his muscular arms and shoulders and cut-off pants and tennis shoes — like he was at South Padre Island on his vacation — couldn’t pick his nose”; a Black picker from Detroit named Clinton who “was broke and needed money to get home”; an exasperated foreman named Larry Mendoza and a violent foreman named Ray Doyle; and Connie Chavez, who uses her bullhorn to implore the melon pickers to replace their sacks of melons with a picket sign (“Attention! Oigame, senores! Your foreman has returned from the toilet. Try to look happy while you work for a stinking dollar ten cents an hour.”). Connie is brash, funny, and fearless. She’s by far the story’s best character.

The story develops themes of social justice while recognizing the differing approaches that might be taken to solve injustice. Mora emphasizes that he’s trying to organize a union, not lead a revolution, while Chino is more aggressive. Mora scolds Chino because he doesn’t “want to bargain with the man, you want to punish him, kick his teeth out and burn his fields — the East LA pachuco out to teach the gringo a lesson. Do you know what you’re doing? Using La Causa as an excuse.” Chino knows the strike will be met with violence, and while Mora advocates turning the other cheek, Chino expects to see blood on the ground and would prefer that it be the blood of those who oppress Mexicans.

Leonard was still inventing his style at this point. The novella doesn’t include much of the dialog that later became Leonard’s trademark, and it includes a bit more exposition than his later work. Frankly, this is a style I prefer. An ambiguous ending gives the novella an unfinished feel, perhaps because it was meant to evolve into something bigger, but Leonard vividly captured the emotions and courage of migrant labor organizers, as well as the brutality and racial animosity of those who opposed them.

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