The Triumph of Evil (19 page)
But, uh, we were talking about
The Triumph of Evil,
weren’t we?
Well, yes, I suppose we were. And I think I know why I was Paul Kavanagh for that book, and why I used other pen names when there was no reason to do so.
For a while, when someone asked me that question, I had an answer I could trot out. I’d sigh and I’d shrug, and I’d go on to explain that I’d evidently been trying to avoid building a following.
But I don’t think that’s it, not really. I wasn’t afraid of success, and I wasn’t striving to hold it at bay.
I think I found pen names liberating.
This is me
, the writer of fiction announces, over and over again.
This is me … but it’s not.
Some novelists make their own lives the source material for their work. Other channel their true selves through their imagination, becoming other people who lead other lives in the pages of their work. I have always been of the second sort, and I seem to have found it doubly comforting not only to write about nonexistent people but also to write about them as a nonexistent person myself.
Thus Paul Kavanagh, protagonist of one book, author of another (and, later still, another:
Not Comin’ Home to You.
)
A few years passed and I wrote a book that dealt for the first time with the world in which I grew up, the middle-class Jewish community of Buffalo, New York. I didn’t tell my story, or that of anyone I knew, and in fact I made my protagonist a woman and published the book under a female pen name. My publisher argued forcefully for me to use my own name on the book, but I wouldn’t have it, insisting that a novel about a woman ought to carry a woman’s name.
That may or may not have been true; I’ve discussed it more in the afterword for the book in question,
A Week as Andrea Benstock
, but what difference does it make? It was beside the point. I wanted a pen name because I wanted a pen name.
This is me. But it’s not.
I ought to say
something
about
The Triumph of Evil
. It was written during a time of great political paranoia, in the wake of a string of assassinations, and its characters and incidents and overall storyline very much reflect that time. There were more than a few thrillers back then that involved elaborate conspiracies, but I found myself drawn more to the compelling notion of one skilled and resourceful individual acting alone, and changing the political landscape in the process.
The book was written in a very short period of time. A couple of weeks, if I remember correctly. I wrote it in a studio apartment at 21 West 35th Street, four flights above Drum’s Restaurant. A Mr. Drum owned the restaurant, and the building, too. The restaurant’s gone now, and I imagine Drum’s gone along with it.
I lived near Lambertville, New Jersey, at the time, with my wife and daughters and a slew of rabbits and donkeys and goats. It was paradise out there, but I couldn’t get any writing done. So I came into the city to write, and the various pieds-à-terre I found served as useful venues for adultery.
But I got a lot more writing done than messing around. I wrote
Chip Harrison Scores Again
on West Thirty-Fifth Street as well as
Ronald Rabbit is a Dirty Old Man
and
The Triumph of Evil
. Old Man Drum is gone, and so are two women who briefly brightened my life on West Thirty-Fifth Street, and I wish them all a peaceful repose. But I’m still here, and, remarkably, so are the books. It’s hard to know how a work as much of its time as
The Triumph of Evil
holds up all these years later, but I’m glad it’s still around, and can only hope you enjoyed it.
—Lawrence Block
Greenwich Village
Lawrence Block ([email protected]) welcomes your email responses; he reads them all, and replies when he can.
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.