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“It was a time when the New York neighborhoods were filled with these teenage gangs,” Ellson recalled for this author. “Terrific hostility between them, lots of violence, killings. I saw all kinds of mixed up and crazy things at that job, and I took my notebook everywhere I went. I made lots of notes and a lot of the stuff in my topics was just writing down what these young people said.” He wrote the novels in longhand while traveling to and from work on the subway. He wrote 1,200 words a day, 600 on the way to the job and 600 on the way home.
Ellson said many of the kids looked at him as a father confessor and would tell him everything. They knew he could be trusted not to repeat anything to the cops. “After Duke came out they’d be lined up waiting to talk to me, kids accused of a couple of murders, saying ‘Want to hear a good story?’ I got all kinds of shocking stuff from these kids. I had earned their respect, they believed in me, and I never gave them away. If they were in serious trouble I would try to steer them to a psychiatrist I trusted, but I never gave them away.”
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