Did it occur to me, in the stillness of an Ohio night, that I was cheerfully violating the rules I’d laid down for others? I doubt I ever gave it a thought, and why should I? At Midwood, and the following year at Nightstand Books, a handful of writers were essentially inventing a new kind of book, furnishing product to fill a demand the marketplace hadn’t known existed.
And the demand was unmistakably present. Midwood and Nightstand were wildly successful from the day their first titles hit the stands. We who wrote the books did so for a flat rate so we didn’t get royalties, but if we had we’d have made a lot of money. Readers liked these books, and apparently couldn’t get enough of them.
I didn’t know this then, but I knew Harry Shorten wasn’t going to mind if my lead character was a writer. Just so there was a sex scene in every chapter, restrained enough to keep him out of jail, but sufficiently stimulating so that the reader would endeavor to turn the pages with one hand. So to speak.
And did I have an actual writer in mind?
No, of course not. If my lead character was anybody—and I’m by no means sure that he was—then he was my own self, projected into a possible future. I’d read Skid Row U.S.A.,by Sara Harris, and found the notion of a descent to the Bowery a reasonably romantic fantasy. I could as readily envision myself ending up in a flophouse sucking on a bottle of muscatel as reading leather-bound books by the fireside in the library of my Westport estate.
In the fullness of time, I came closer to the former than the latter. But I didn’t know that then. All I knew was that I had a book to finish, and that I’d better see how much of it I could get done before the sun came up and it was too late to work.
—Lawrence Block
Greenwich Village
Lawrence Block ([email protected]) welcomes your email responses; he reads them all, and replies when he can.
A Biography of Lawrence Block
Lawrence Block (b. 1938) is the recipient of a Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America and an internationally renowned bestselling author. His prolific career spans over one hundred books, including four bestselling series as well as dozens of short stories, articles, and books on writing. He has won four Edgar and Shamus Awards, two Falcon Awards from the Maltese Falcon Society of Japan, the Nero and Philip Marlowe Awards, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Private Eye Writers of America, and the Cartier Diamond Dagger from the Crime Writers Association of the United Kingdom. In France, he has been awarded the title Grand Maitre du Roman Noir and has twice received the Societe 813 trophy.
Born in Buffalo, New York, Block attended Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. Leaving school before graduation, he moved to New York City, a locale that features prominently in most of his works. His earliest published writing appeared in the 1950s, frequently under pseudonyms, and many of these novels are now considered classics of the pulp fiction genre. During his early writing years, Block also worked in the mailroom of a publishing house and reviewed the submission slush pile for a literary agency. He has cited the latter experience as a valuable lesson for a beginning writer.
Block’s first short story, “You Can’t Lose,” was published in 1957 in Manhunt, the first of dozens of short stories and articles that he would publish over the years in publications including American Heritage, Redbook, Playboy, Cosmopolitan, GQ, and the New York Times. His short fiction has been featured and reprinted in over eleven collections including Enough Rope (2002), which is comprised of eighty-four of his short stories.
In 1966, Block introduced the insomniac protagonist Evan Tanner in the novel The Thief Who Couldn’t Sleep. Block’s diverse heroes also include the urbane and witty bookseller—and thief-on-the-side—Bernie Rhodenbarr; the gritty recovering alcoholic and private investigator Matthew Scudder; and Chip Harrison, the comical assistant to a private investigator with a Nero Wolfe fixation who appears in No Score, Chip Harrison Scores Again, Make Out with Murder, and The Topless Tulip Caper. Block has also written several short stories and novels featuring Keller, a professional hit man. Block’s work is praised for his richly imagined and varied characters and frequent use of humor.
A father of three daughters, Block lives in New York City with his second wife, Lynne. When he isn’t touring or attending mystery conventions, he and Lynne are frequent travelers, as members of the Travelers’ Century Club for nearly a decade now, and have visited about 150 countries.
A four-year-old Block in 1942.
Block during the summer of 1944, with his baby sister, Betsy.
Block’s 1955 yearbook picture from Bennett High School in Buffalo, New York.
Block in 1983, in a cap and leather jacket. Block says that he “later lost the cap, and some son of a bitch stole the jacket. Don’t even ask about the hair.”
Block with his eldest daughter, Amy, at her wedding in October 1984.
Seen here around 1990, Block works in his office on New York’s West 13th Street with, he says, “a bad haircut, an ugly shirt, and a few extra pounds.”
Block at a bookstore appearance in support of A Walk Among the Tombstones, his tenth Matthew Scudder novel, on Veterans Day, 1992.
Block and his wife, Lynne.
Block and Lynne on vacation “someplace exotic.”
Block race walking in an international marathon in Niagara Falls in 2005. He got the John Deere cap at the John Deere Museum in Grand Detour, Illinois, and still has it today.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
copyright © 1959 by Tower Publications
cover design by Elizabeth Connor
ISBN: 978-1-4532-1218-9
This edition published in 2011 by Open Road Integrated Media
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