A Diet of Treacle

I’m not sure he was right about that. The real education was being on my own and living in the Village and meeting all sorts of fascinating folk. I still know some of the people I met on Sunday afternoons around the fountain in Washington Square. A few of them are gone, and I miss them, even as I miss those days and nights.

A few years later I wrote a book set in that time and place. I called it A Diet of Treacle, with an epigraph quote from Alice in Wonderland. It wound up at Beacon Books, where they published it with the title Pads Are for Passion. I used a pen name on the book—Sheldon Lord, a name I’d used before and would use again.

Years passed, as they’re apt to do. Hard Case Crime, which had reprinted several of my early crime novels, was casting about for something else of mine, and I remembered the book. Founder Charles Ardai not only liked the book, he even liked its original title.

And, wonder of wonders, Publishers Weekly had these nice things to say about this early effort:

Block’s New York is a noir wonderland, populated with junkies and beatsters (the dark predecessor to the modern hipster) spouting angular tough-guy dialogue… Block effortlessly immerses himself in… their world of drugs, sex, and disaffection with a matter-of-factness that hits hard, all the more convincing because Block never makes an overt effort to convince. A potboiler morality play at its finest. (“Fiction Reviews,”

Publishers Weekly

, October 2007)

Well, that’s generous of them, innit? Possibly more generous than this very early work deserves, but that’s OK. I’ll take it, and I’m glad to see it go on to a further existence as an ebook. I hope you’ve enjoyed it.

And as for its author, I’ve moved around a bit since that first sojourn in the Village. I’ve lived at various times in upstate New York, in New Jersey, in Wisconsin, in California and Florida; within New York City I’ve had apartments on the Upper West Side, in Washington Heights, and in Brooklyn’s Greenpoint. But I’ve spent most of my time where I started, in Greenwich Village, and for the past twenty years I’ve lived within a half mile of that first place on West Fourteenth Street. Sometimes it seems as though I’ve come a long way. Other times I don’t seem to have gone very far at all.

—Lawrence Block

Greenwich Village

Lawrence Block (lawbloc@gmail.com) 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.

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