Interview with Lawrence Block (October 2001)
Author of Hope to Die (2001)
October 10, 2001
Lawrence Block is a Mystery Writers of America Grand Master and a multiple winner of the Edgar, Shamus, and Maltese Falcon awards. His fifty-plus books include the Matthew Scudder novels, the most recent being the critically acclaimed Everybody Dies, and the New York Times bestseller Hit Man. Mr. Block is a devout New Yorker who spends much of his time traveling.
Q. What made you decide to start writing mysteries?
A. I don't know that I ever decided. I found that my best ideas seemed to be in the general area of crime fiction, as was the work I was most pleased with. And one thing led to another.
Q. After having written over 50 books, how do you keep your work so fresh and exciting?
A. Well, I write only what I want to write, and I try to avoid paying attention to the expectations of others.
Q. Your latest book, Hope to Die, is the 15th in the Matt Scudder series. Do you anticipate him returning once again? (We certainly hope so!)
A. I hope so, too. We'll see.
Q. Did you ever think, so long ago when you started out writing for the pulps and smut magazines, that you would come this far?
A. I don't honestly remember what I expected. Early on, I think what I most wanted from writing was that it might get me laid. And it hardly ever did.
Q. What one thing do you still want to accomplish most in your writing career?
A. It's hard to resist referring you to the previous answer.
Q. You have visited nearly 100 different countries in your "career" as a traveler. What is the one place that everyone should try to visit at least once in their lives?
A. New York, of course. I have the great good fortune to live there.
Q. Do you read reviews of your books?
A. Not for validation, but because they have an effect -- though not, alas, a very big one -- on sales. What's really odd is that the most important single variable of a review is the space it takes up. Better a big bad review than a small rave. A surprising number of people don't remember whether the review was favorable or unfavorable, just if they read it.
Q. What advice would you give aspiring writers (10 words or less)?
A. Write to please yourself.
Q. What's the last book you read?
A. Don Westlake's new Richard Stark/Parker, Firebreak. Outstanding, but when is he ever anything less than that? And I'm in the middle of Joseph Kanon's The Good German -- also excellent.
Q. What's next for you?
A. After the Mother of all Book Tours? I dunno. I've started a multiple-viewpoint thriller, but I may shelve it for awhile. It's hard to know what to write these days, hard to do much besides stare at CNN.
Bonus Question: We've been waiting for 3 years to ask you this and almost forgot! You dedicated your book Everybody Dies to Ross Thomas. Were you a fan of his work?
I was -- and remain -- a great fan of Ross Thomas's, and find his work infinitely rereadable. Though geography made our meetings infrequent, we were friends for something like twenty years. He was a sweet, wonderful man, and I miss him.
Posted by David J. Montgomery in Interviews | Permalink
