Lawrence Block
Encyclopedia
Lawrence Block is an acclaimed contemporary American crime
Crime fiction
Crime fiction is the literary genre that fictionalizes crimes, their detection, criminals and their motives. It is usually distinguished from mainstream fiction and other genres such as science fiction or historical fiction, but boundaries can be, and indeed are, blurred...

 writer best known for two long-running New York
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

–set series, about the recovering alcoholic P.I.
Private investigator
A private investigator , private detective or inquiry agent, is a person who can be hired by individuals or groups to undertake investigatory law services. Private detectives/investigators often work for attorneys in civil cases. Many work for insurance companies to investigate suspicious claims...

 Matthew Scudder
Matthew Scudder
Matthew Scudder is a fictional private investigator, the most famous and enduring creation of American crime writer Lawrence Block.Scudder debuted in 1976's The Sins of the Fathers as an alcoholic ex-cop who had recently quit the NYPD and left his family after accidentally causing the death of a...

 and gentleman burglar
Gentleman thief
In the Victorian vernacular, a gentleman thief is a particularly well-behaving and apparently well bred thief. A "gentleman" is usually, but not always, a man with an inherited title of nobility and inherited wealth, who need not work for a living. Such a man steals not in order to gain material...

 Bernie Rhodenbarr
Bernie Rhodenbarr
Bernie Rhodenbarr is the protagonist of the Burglar series of comic mystery novels by Lawrence Block. He first appeared in Burglars Can't Be Choosers, published in 1977; as of 2004, he has appeared in ten novels by Block, as well as three short stories Bernie Rhodenbarr is the protagonist of the...

, respectively. Block was named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America
Mystery Writers of America
Mystery Writers of America is an organization for mystery writers, based in New York.The organization was founded in 1945 by Clayton Rawson, Anthony Boucher, Lawrence Treat, and Brett Halliday....

 in 1993.

Biography

Born in Buffalo, N.Y.
Buffalo, New York
Buffalo is the second most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City. Located in Western New York on the eastern shores of Lake Erie and at the head of the Niagara River across from Fort Erie, Ontario, Buffalo is the seat of Erie County and the principal city of the...

, Lawrence Block attended Antioch College
Antioch College
Antioch College is a private, independent liberal arts college in Yellow Springs, Ohio, United States. It was the founder and the flagship institution of the six-campus Antioch University system. Founded in 1852 by the Christian Connection, the college began operating in 1853 with politician and...

 in Yellow Springs, OH, but left before graduating. His earliest work, published pseudonymously in the 1950s, was mostly in the porn paperback industry, an apprenticeship he shared with fellow mystery author Donald E. Westlake
Donald E. Westlake
Donald Edwin Westlake was an American writer, with over a hundred novels and non-fiction books to his credit. He specialized in crime fiction, especially comic capers, with an occasional foray into science fiction or other genres...

. The first of his "own" work to appear was the 1957 story "You Can't Lose." He has since published more than fifty novels and more than a hundred short stories, as well as a series of books for writers.

Block has lived in New York City for decades, setting most of his fiction there, and has come to be very closely associated with the city. He is married to Lynne Block, and has three daughters, Amy Reichel, Jill Block and Alison Pouliot, from an earlier marriage. With Lynne, he spends much of his time traveling (the two have been to 135 countries), but continues to consider New York his home.

In 2005 he was honored with the Gumshoe Lifetime Achievement Award
Gumshoe Awards
The Gumshoe Awards are an American award for popular crime fiction literary works. The Gumshoe Awards are awarded annually by the American Internet magazine Mystery Ink to recognize the best achievements in crime fiction. The nominated books were chosen from those published for the first time in...

.

Matthew Scudder

Block's most famous creation, the ever-evolving Matthew Scudder, was introduced in 1976's The Sins of the Fathers as an alcoholic ex-cop working as an unlicensed private investigator in Hell's Kitchen
Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan
Hell's Kitchen, also known as Clinton and Midtown West, is a neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City between 34th Street and 59th Street, from 8th Avenue to the Hudson River....

. Originally published as paperbacks, the early novels are interchangeable; the second and third entries—In the Midst of Death (1976) and Time to Murder and Create (1977)—were written in the opposite order. 1982's Eight Million Ways to Die (filmed in 1986 by Hal Ashby
Hal Ashby
Hal Ashby was an American film director and film editor.-Birth and early years:Born William Hal Ashby in Ogden, Utah, Ashby grew up in a Mormon household and had a tumultuous childhood as part of a dysfunctional family which included the divorce of his parents, his father's suicide and his...

, with unpopular results) breaks from that trend, concluding with Scudder introducing himself at an Alcoholics Anonymous
Alcoholics Anonymous
Alcoholics Anonymous is an international mutual aid movement which says its "primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics achieve sobriety." Now claiming more than 2 million members, AA was founded in 1935 by Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith in Akron, Ohio...

 meeting. The series was set to end on that note, but an idle promise Block had made to supply an editor friend with an original Scudder short resulted in "By the Dawn's Early Light", a story set during the character's drinking days, but told from the perspective of a recovering alcoholic. Block expanded on that with 1986's When the Sacred Ginmill Closes (named for a line in a song by folk singer Dave Van Ronk
Dave Van Ronk
Dave Van Ronk was an American folk singer, born in Brooklyn, New York, who settled in Greenwich Village, New York, and was eventually nicknamed the "Mayor of MacDougal Street" ....

, a close friend), which proved not only one of the most literary entries, but also a favorite of the author and his fans. From then on, Scudder's circumstances rarely remain the same from one book to the next; 1990's A Ticket to the Boneyard, for example, reunites him with Elaine Mardell, a hooker from his days on the force, whom he marries several books later. Other fan favorites are 1991's taut, gruesome A Dance at the Slaughterhouse (winner of the Edgar Award
Edgar Award
The Edgar Allan Poe Awards , named after Edgar Allan Poe, are presented every year by the Mystery Writers of America...

 for Best [mystery] Novel), and 1993's A Long Line of Dead Men, a tightly-plotted puzzler featuring a rapidly dwindling fraternity known as the "Club of 31". The seventeenth entry, A Drop of the Hard Stuff was published in May, 2011.

It has been suggested that Scudder's struggle with alcoholism is in part autobiographical; while Block has repeatedly refused to discuss the subject, citing AA's own tradition of anonymity, in a column he wrote for Writer's Digest, Block wrote that when he created Scudder, "I let him hang out in the same saloon where I spent a great deal of my own time. I was drinking pretty heavily around that time, and I made him a pretty heavy drinker, too. I drank whiskey, sometimes mixing it with coffee. So did Scudder."

Bernie Rhodenbarr

Block's other major series, humorous and much lighter in tone, relates the misadventures of gentleman burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr. The series is rich in sophisticated, witty dialogue.

Unlike Scudder, Rhodenbarr is ageless, remaining essentially the same from 1977's Burglars Can't Be Choosers, to the tenth and most recent entry, 2004's The Burglar on the Prowl. The only significant advancements come in the third volume, The Burglar Who Liked to Quote Kipling (1979, winner of the first annual Nero Award
Nero Award
The Nero Award is a literary award for excellence in the mystery genre presented by The Wolfe Pack, a society founded in 1978 to explore and celebrate the Nero Wolfe stories of Rex Stout...

) which sees Bernie having used the spoils from his previous caper to buy a bookstore, and introduces Carolyn Kaiser, his lesbian "soulmate" and partner in crime. The plots run very much to form: Bernie breaks into a residence (usually on Manhattan's Upper East Side
Upper East Side
The Upper East Side is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, between Central Park and the East River. The Upper East Side lies within an area bounded by 59th Street to 96th Street, and the East River to Fifth Avenue-Central Park...

), and, through a series of implausible events, becomes involved in a murder investigation—often as the prime suspect. Not even an eleven-year hiatus (between 1983's The Burglar Who Painted Like Mondrian and 1994's The Burglar Who Traded Ted Williams) would see that basic formula change. There is, however, a meta quality to the more recent entries: Bernie, the reluctant detective, is himself a bookseller and genre fan, and is apt to make references to Agatha Christie
Agatha Christie
Dame Agatha Christie DBE was a British crime writer of novels, short stories, and plays. She also wrote romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best remembered for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections , and her successful West End plays.According to...

, E.W. Hornung (his cat is named "Raffles"), Dashiell Hammett
Dashiell Hammett
Samuel Dashiell Hammett was an American author of hard-boiled detective novels and short stories, and political activist. Among the enduring characters he created are Sam Spade , Nick and Nora Charles , and the Continental Op .In addition to the significant influence his novels and stories had on...

, Raymond Chandler
Raymond Chandler
Raymond Thornton Chandler was an American novelist and screenwriter.In 1932, at age forty-five, Raymond Chandler decided to become a detective fiction writer after losing his job as an oil company executive during the Depression. His first short story, "Blackmailers Don't Shoot", was published in...

, Sue Grafton
Sue Grafton
Sue Taylor Grafton is a contemporary American author of detective novels. She is best known as the author of the 'alphabet series' featuring private investigator Kinsey Millhone in the fictional city of Santa Teresa, California. The daughter of detective novelist C. W...

 and John Sandford
John Sandford (novelist)
John Sandford is the pseudonym of the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and best-selling novelist John Roswell Camp. Camp was born on February 23, 1944, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He received a Bachelor's in American History and a Master's in Journalism from the University of Iowa.From 1971 to 1978,...

, among others. The Burglar Who Thought He Was Bogart (1995) exploits this to full effect: set during a Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey DeForest Bogart was an American actor. He is widely regarded as a cultural icon.The American Film Institute ranked Bogart as the greatest male star in the history of American cinema....

 film festival, the story is itself inspired by many of the actor's most famous roles. The Burglar in the Library (1997) similarly imagines a meeting between Hammet and Chandler at a New England inn in the 1940s, casting a volume inscribed by Chandler to Hammett as its own Maltese Falcon. In The Burglar in the Rye, Bernie helps track down a writer clearly based on J.D. Salinger.

The second novel, The Burglar in The Closet was filmed in 1987 as Burglar
Burglar (film)
Burglar is a 1987 American comedy film directed by Hugh Wilson and distributed by Warner Bros. The film stars Whoopi Goldberg and Bobcat Goldthwait.-Plot:...

, with Whoopi Goldberg
Whoopi Goldberg
Whoopi Goldberg is an American comedian, actress, singer-songwriter, political activist, author and talk show host.Goldberg made her film debut in The Color Purple playing Celie, a mistreated black woman in the Deep South. She received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress and won...

 as Bernie (or Bernice).

Evan Michael Tanner

Besides Scudder and Rhodenbarr, Block has written eight novels about Evan Tanner, an adventurer and accidental revolutionary who, as a result of an injury sustained in the Korean War
Korean War
The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...

, cannot sleep. All but the last of these were published in the '60s and early '70s (beginning with 1966's The Thief Who Couldn't Sleep), while the most recent, 1998's Tanner on Ice, revived the character after a nearly a thirty-year hiatus.

Chip Harrison

Chip Harrison is Block's salute to Rex Stout
Rex Stout
Rex Todhunter Stout was an American writer noted for his detective fiction. Stout is best known as the creator of the larger-than-life fictional detective Nero Wolfe, described by reviewer Will Cuppy as "that Falstaff of detectives." Wolfe's assistant Archie Goodwin recorded the cases of the...

's Nero Wolfe
Nero Wolfe
Nero Wolfe is a fictional detective, created in 1934 by the American mystery writer Rex Stout. Wolfe's confidential assistant Archie Goodwin narrates the cases of the detective genius. Stout wrote 33 novels and 39 short stories from 1934 to 1974, with most of them set in New York City. Wolfe's...

. He is a take on Wolfe's assistant, Archie Goodwin
Archie Goodwin (fictional detective)
Archie Goodwin is a fictional character and detective in Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe mysteries. The witty voice of all the stories, he recorded the cases of the detective genius from 1934 to 1975 . He lives in Nero Wolfe's brownstone in New York City.Archie was born on October 23 in Chillicothe, Ohio,...

, while his employer, Leo Haig, openly models himself after Wolfe himself, imitating most of his idiosyncracies, such as refusing to leave his residence on business and sending out his associate instead to do the "legwork" (though he substitutes an affection for tropical fish
Tropical fish
Tropical fish include fish found in tropical environments around the world, including both freshwater and salt water species.Tropical fish are popular as aquarium fish, due to their often bright coloration...

 for Wolfe's obsession with plants). Haig believes that Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin actually exist in real life, living and operating under pseudonyms; that Rex Stout was only a chronicler and one pseudonym of Archie Goodwin, and that if Haig proves himself worthy, Wolfe will invite Haig to dinner. Having read all publications on Wolfe, Haig operates as he imagines Wolfe would, and assigns Harrison tasks as Wolfe would assign Goodwin.

Keller

Three episodic novels — Hit Man, Hit List, and Hit Parade — and one full length novel — Hit and Run — chronicle the life of Keller, a lonely, wistful hitman who originally appeared as a semi-regular feature in Playboy
Playboy
Playboy is an American men's magazine that features photographs of nude women as well as journalism and fiction. It was founded in Chicago in 1953 by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. The magazine has grown into Playboy Enterprises, Inc., with...

magazine in the 1990s. Keller's full name is John Paul Keller (a fact mentioned in Hit Man), although he is rarely called anything but Keller in the series. Keller receives assignments via a contact named Dot, based in White Plains
White Plains, New York
White Plains is a city and the county seat of Westchester County, New York, United States. It is located in south-central Westchester, about east of the Hudson River and northwest of Long Island Sound...

. His assignments usually take him to different cities, where he often envisions himself retiring from the business, daydreaming about settling there, before finishing off the assignment and returning, his fantasies forgotten as a passing dream. Keller's unlikely pastime, in the recent novels, is stamp collecting
Stamp collecting
Stamp collecting is the collecting of postage stamps and related objects. It is one of the world's most popular hobbies, with the number of collectors in the United States alone estimated to be over 20 million.- Collecting :...

. Hit and Run was nominated for The CWA Gold Dagger at the 2009 Crime Thriller Awards.

Other works

Small Town (2003), Block's first non-series book in fifteen years, details a group of New Yorkers' varying responses to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Block has also written dozens of short stories over the years, and he is the only three-time winner of the Edgar Award
Edgar Award
The Edgar Allan Poe Awards , named after Edgar Allan Poe, are presented every year by the Mystery Writers of America...

 for Best Short Story. The 2002 collection Enough Rope compiles stories, 84 in all, from earlier collections, such as Like a Lamb to Slaughter and Sometimes They Bite, along with new and previously uncollected stories.

In addition to writing the scripts for a handful of television episodes over the years—including, in 2005, two episodes of the ESPN
ESPN
Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, commonly known as ESPN, is an American global cable television network focusing on sports-related programming including live and pre-taped event telecasts, sports talk shows, and other original programming....

 series Tilt
Tilt (TV series)
Tilt is a U.S. TV series set against the backdrop of the World Championship of Poker tournament in Las Vegas, and with the tagline "You're playing poker. They're playing you." The series first aired on January 13, 2005, and is the second original drama series from ESPN, following Playmakers...

—Block co-wrote the screenplay for My Blueberry Nights
My Blueberry Nights
My Blueberry Nights is a 2007 romance/drama/road film directed by Wong Kar Wai, his first feature in English. The screenplay by Wong and Lawrence Block is based on a short Chinese-language film written and directed by Wong...

, a 2007 film directed by Wong Kar-wai
Wong Kar-wai
Wong Kar-wai BBS is a Hong Kong Second Wave filmmaker, internationally renowned as an auteur for his visually unique, highly stylized, emotionally resonant work, including Days of Being Wild , Ashes of Time , Chungking Express , Fallen Angels , Happy Together and 2046...

 and starring Norah Jones
Norah Jones
Norah Jones is an American singer-songwriter and occasional actress.In 2002, she launched her solo music career with the release of the commercially successful and critically acclaimed album Come Away With Me, which was certified a diamond album in 2002, selling over 20 million copies...

.

Block is an alumnus of the Ragdale Foundation
Ragdale
Ragdale is the summer retreat of Chicago architect Howard Van Doren Shaw, located in Lake Forest, Illinois. It is also the home of the Ragdale Foundation...

.

Matthew Scudder novels

  1. The Sins of the Fathers (1976)
  2. In the Midst of Death (1976)
  3. Time to Murder and Create (1977)
  4. A Stab in the Dark (1981)
  5. Eight Million Ways to Die
    8 Million Ways to Die
    8 Million Ways to Die is a 1986 American crime film. This was the final film directed by Hal Ashby, and the first attempt to adapt the popular Matthew Scudder detective stories of Lawrence Block for the screen. The screenplay was written by Oliver Stone and David Lee Henry, with uncredited...

    (1982)
  6. When the Sacred Ginmill Closes
    When the Sacred Ginmill Closes
    When the Sacred Ginmill Closes is a Matthew Scudder novel, written by Lawrence Block. Based on the short story "By the Dawn's Early Light", and published four years after Eight Million Ways to Die, this novel resurrected Block's interest in the character and led to his writing 10 more titles in the...

    (1986)
  7. Out on the Cutting Edge (1989)
  8. A Ticket to the Boneyard (1990)
  9. A Dance at the Slaughterhouse (1991)
  10. A Walk Among the Tombstones (1992)
  11. The Devil Knows You're Dead (1993)
  12. A Long Line of Dead Men (1994)
  13. Even the Wicked (1997)
  14. Everybody Dies (1998)
  15. Hope to Die (2001)
  16. All the Flowers Are Dying (2005)
  17. A Drop of the Hard Stuff (2011)

Bernie Rhodenbarr novels

  1. Burglars Can't Be Choosers (1977)
  2. The Burglar in the Closet (1978)
  3. The Burglar Who Liked to Quote Kipling
    Rudyard Kipling
    Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an English poet, short-story writer, and novelist chiefly remembered for his celebration of British imperialism, tales and poems of British soldiers in India, and his tales for children. Kipling received the 1907 Nobel Prize for Literature...

    (1979)
  4. The Burglar Who Studied Spinoza
    Baruch Spinoza
    Baruch de Spinoza and later Benedict de Spinoza was a Dutch Jewish philosopher. Revealing considerable scientific aptitude, the breadth and importance of Spinoza's work was not fully realized until years after his death...

    (1980)
  5. The Burglar Who Painted Like Mondrian
    Piet Mondrian
    Pieter Cornelis "Piet" Mondriaan, after 1906 Mondrian , was a Dutch painter.He was an important contributor to the De Stijl art movement and group, which was founded by Theo van Doesburg. He evolved a non-representational form which he termed Neo-Plasticism...

    (1983)
  6. The Burglar Who Traded Ted Williams
    Ted Williams
    Theodore Samuel "Ted" Williams was an American professional baseball player and manager. He played his entire 21-year Major League Baseball career as the left fielder for the Boston Red Sox...

    (1994)
  7. The Burglar Who Thought He Was Bogart
    Humphrey Bogart
    Humphrey DeForest Bogart was an American actor. He is widely regarded as a cultural icon.The American Film Institute ranked Bogart as the greatest male star in the history of American cinema....

    (1995)
  8. The Burglar in the Library (1997)
  9. The Burglar in the Rye (1999)
  10. The Burglar on the Prowl (2004)

There are also three Bernie Rhodenbarr short stories: "Like a Thief in the Night" (1983), "The Burglar Who Dropped In On Elvis
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King"....

" (1990), and "The Burglar Who Smelled Smoke" (1997).

Evan Tanner novels

  1. The Thief Who Couldn't Sleep (1966)
  2. The Canceled Czech (1966)
  3. Tanner's Twelve Swingers (1967)
  4. The Scoreless Thai (a.k.a. Two for Tanner) (1968)
  5. Tanner's Tiger (1968)
  6. Here Comes a Hero (a.k.a. Tanner's Virgin) (1968)
  7. Me Tanner, You Jane (1970)
  8. Tanner on Ice (1998)

Chip Harrison novels/stories (as Chip Harrison)

  1. No Score (1970)
  2. Chip Harrison Scores Again (1971)
  3. Make Out With Murder (a.k.a. The Five Little Rich Girls) (1974)
  4. The Topless Tulip Caper (1975)
  5. "As Dark As Christmas Gets" (1997), a Chip Harrison short story written specifically for customers of the Otto Penzler
    Otto Penzler
    Otto Penzler is an editor of mystery fiction in the United States, and proprietor of The Mysterious Bookshop in New York City, where he lives.-Biography:...

    –owned Mysterious Bookshop, printed in booklet format for the 1997 holiday season.

Keller novels

  1. Hit Man (1998)
  2. Hit List (2000)
  3. Hit Parade (2006)
  4. Hit and Run (June 2008)


Paul Kavanagh novels

  1. Such Men Are Dangerous (1969)
  2. The Triumph of Evil (1971)
  3. Not Comin' Home to You (1974)

Other fiction

  • $20 Lust (1961) (reissued as Cinderella Sims)
  • Death Pulls a Doublecross (1961) (reissued as Coward's Kiss)
  • Mona (1961) (reissued as Sweet Slow Death and Grifter's Game)
  • Markham (1961) (reissued as You Could Call It Murder)
  • Pads Are for Passion (1961, as Sheldon Lord) (reissued as A Diet of Treacle)
  • Fidel Castro
    Fidel Castro
    Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz is a Cuban revolutionary and politician, having held the position of Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, and then President from 1976 to 2008. He also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from the party's foundation in 1961 until 2011...

     Assassinated
    (1961, as Lee Duncan) (reissued by Hard Case Crime
    Hard Case Crime
    Hard Case Crime is an American imprint of hardboiled crime novels founded in 2004 by Charles Ardai, also known as the founder of the Internet service Juno Online Services, and Max Phillips....

     as Killing Castro)
  • The Girl with the Long Green Heart (1965)
  • Deadly Honeymoon (1967)
  • After the First Death (1969)
  • The Specialists (1969)
  • Ronald Rabbit Is a Dirty Old Man (1971)
  • Ariel (1980)
  • Random Walk (1988)
  • Enough Rope: Collected Stories (2002)
  • Small Town (2003)
  • My Blueberry Nights
    My Blueberry Nights
    My Blueberry Nights is a 2007 romance/drama/road film directed by Wong Kar Wai, his first feature in English. The screenplay by Wong and Lawrence Block is based on a short Chinese-language film written and directed by Wong...

    (2007)
  • Lucky at Cards (2007)
  • Getting off, A novel of Sex and Violence (2011)

Books for writers

  • Writing the Novel From Plot to Print (1979)
  • Telling Lies for Fun & Profit (1981)
  • Write For Your Life (1986)
  • Spider, Spin Me a Web (1987)
  • The Liar's Bible (2011)

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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