Interview with Lawrence Block

 

LAWRENCE BLOCK was born in Buffalo, New York in 1938. He attended Antioch College in Ohio then went to work in the mailroom of a New York publisher. His first story was published in 1957 and he has gone on to write more than thirty novels and countless stories and articles, not just under his own name but also as Paul Kavanagh. Indeed Lawrence Block has had several pseudonyms having learned his writer's art crafting erotic literature as Andrew Shaw, Sheldon Lord and Jill Emerson! In 1994 Lawrence Block won the Mystery Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America and has also won Edgar, Shamus, and Maltese Falcon awards for his work. In 2004 Lawrence Block was awarded the Crime Writers' Association Cartier Diamond Dagger Award for a lifetime's achievement in crime writing. I interviewed him once before, long ago. This is new, and I’ve awarded Block an Audiobooks Today INFLUENCER AWARD for 2022 in the category of Mystery.

Jonathan Lowe) What is the takeaway from your new book?

Lawrence Block) Perhaps that there's nothing more dangerous—to himself and others—than a Writer with an Idea. I was sure I was done writing about Bernie Rhodenbarr, a burglar and bookseller who'd been put out of both businesses by the twin forces of modern surveillance cameras and online booksellers. Then I asked myself a question that started with What if, and I thought of a WHAT MAD UNIVERSE, a novel by Fredric Brown, a book I'd read sixty-plus years ago. I refreshed my memory and knew I'd found a way for Bernie to keep doing what he does best. And then I had no choice but to put my shoulder to the wheel, and the result is The Burglar Who Met Fredric Brown.

Q) How many series now?

A) It depends how you count. I've written eighteen books about Matthew Scudder, an ex-cop and unlicensed private detective; eight with Evan Tanner, an international adventurer and permanent insomniac; half a dozen with Keller, a professional hit man and enthusiastic philatelist; four with Chip Harrison, a sort of Lecher in the Rye; and the new book is the thirteenth with Bernie Rhodenbarr. But there's also Martin H. Ehrengraf, the criminous criminal lawyer who's been in around a dozen short stories. And I could make the case that THE SPECIALISTS, while only a single novel, can be labeled a one-book series.

What pleases me most, beyond the numbers, is that all of these series, and all of my other books, way back to my beginnings in the genre of Midcentury Erotica, are available today—as ebooks and paperbacks. And almost all of them are also presently available in audio. 

Q) Do you listen to your audiobooks, and what do you think of your new narrators?

A) I'm glad you asked, although the question does make me the least bit uncomfortable. On the one hand, I'm a big fan of audio as a publishing medium. I've watched it grow from botched abridgements that were hard to find outside of truck stops to the phenomenon it is today, and I'm confident this growth is nowhere near complete. That's led me to embrace audio self-publishing, which I've been doing for several years now in partnership with a number of fine narrators; that's how I've managed to have so much of my extensive backlist in audio.

But at the same time, I have to confess that I'm not a consumer when it comes to audio. Just as audiobooks are a godsend for people who have difficulty absorbing information from the printed page, so are they no fun at all for someone like me, who is not at all good at absorbing and retaining information that comes in through my ears. When I try to listen to audiobooks, my mind inevitably wanders—andmore often than not I pick up something to read.

Of course I listen to my own narrators, not at great length but to get a sense of what they bring to the material. The commercial publishers I work with—Recorded Books, Tantor, Blackstone—always choose talented and professional voice artists, and I've had the further good fortune to connect with some superb narrators for my self-publishing ventures.

Right now I'm still reeling from the shock of the very recent death of Richard Ferrone, the long-serving Voice of Bernie Rhodenbarr; he lived only two or three weeks after a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. The Burglar Who Met Fredric Brown must have been one of his very last audiobooks. I've already heard from fans who'd listened to it, and they all agree it's superb—which is no surprise. He'll be missed.

Lowe) I didn't know that! Met him once at the Audie awards. Sorry to hear it.