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Victor Letonoff

Lewes

Established
Literature: Creative Nonfiction

By: Gail Obenreder

“I approach my writing as I once did sculpture, cleaning it up, cleaning it up, cleaning it up, until I can see the final form.”

Victor Letonoff’s nonfiction path was forged in a very different milieu – he “started out as a sculptor and a decorative blacksmith.” But when he married and had a family, Letonoff wanted a more stable profession, so he became a police officer. Surprisingly, he found that it was “a great precursor to writing,” something in which he’d always been interested.

An avid reader, he found that “the leap to creative writing felt natural.” And as a policeman, Letonoff learned to “pay attention to details, be aware of your surroundings, and be able to document events” with absolute clarity. His profession provided ample narrative possibilities, “front row seats to every interaction between human beings that you can imagine.”

The oldest of three brothers, Letonoff moved a lot as a child. His father was an Army officer and his mother worked for the Department of Defense, “so we spent a considerable time in Europe.” But military and government professionals who move regularly always have roots, and Letonoff’s are in Delaware. His mother’s family is from Wilmington and Rehoboth, and his father’s family is from Mount Cuba. So when he and his ex-wife wanted to start a family 29 years ago, the Lewes resident returned here.

In his writing, Letonoff’s goal is “to demystify the aspects of [policing] that few ever contemplate.” Unlike much of the nonfiction describing his profession, “my essays . . .  offer insight into the ordinary burdens that every cop carries” and depict the pride he feels in a profession that is often regarded with contempt. His work OIS (Officer Involved Shooting) attempts to capture the way time both races and slows during a deadly force event.

excerpt from OIS (Officer Involved Shooting), 2023

The Beginning

It’s that time of night in Party City: the noise seems crystal clear but there are so many sounds I can’t differentiate or focus on any one in particular; it’s just loud, tinny, mixed with laughter, music, screams. The traffic plays background rhythm with cars and horns, the urgency of emergency vehicles, all of it spiced by the heavy air— oh, so heavy—with the smell of booze.

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Letonoff retired from active policing in 2020, when his writing began to take center stage, and the once-professional sculptor brings a maker’s perspective to his nonfiction. The events (who, what, where, when) are like the bronze or clay with which he formerly worked, and “this raw material is given to me intact.” Letonoff works diligently to “shape the material, sculpt that story, mold the facts into something unique and functional.”

Not surprisingly, his early writing influences were consummate storytellers like Leon Uris and James Michener, and today he follows crime and espionage writers like CJ Box and Robert Parker. Unlike writers who sometimes work from outlines, Letonoff confides that his “initial process of getting a story down is messy,” so he often finds it challenging to see the final form. He also works hard to “navigate the ever-changing landscape [where] cops are not very popular right now.”

But he feels gratified when someone tells him that “they have different understanding of cops because of my words.” And he’s grateful to have a family that is excited about his writing and to live in a community where “I often have a chance to share my work.”

Letonoff “can go through a couple of novels as week,” and he also loves working in his garden and then cooking with ingredients that he’s grown. But his greatest love – “outside of my wife, family, and writing” – is his motorcycle. He’s an officer in a cycle club and relishes taking trips to new places and spending time with his “club brothers.”

The recipient of a Division award in 2016, Letonoff says that this latest Fellowship is “a huge validation of my work. It’s an honor,” and it’s also a motivating force. He’s had a project “bouncing around,” but it was only when he received word of this award that he felt able to begin work on it. “I’m excited, invigorated, and I’m grateful for that.”

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