Back in the early 2000s (because I can’t bring myself to say “oughts”), I used to play a little online game with celebrities called “5 for the Famous.”
Back then it was easy to get people’s email addresses (before all of you became stalkerish creeps). I used to write and ask random celebrities to play along. They would get 10 questions and had to choose 5 to answer.
Here is one of those interviews:
September 02, 2003
Lawrence Block
Lawrence Block’s novels range from the urban noir of Matthew Scudder (Hope to Die) to the urbane effervescence of Bernie Rhodenbarr (The Burglar in the Rye), while other characters include the globe-trotting insomniac Evan Tanner (Tanner On Ice) and the introspective assassin Keller (Hit List). He has published articles and short fiction in American Heritage, Redbook, Playboy, Cosmopolitan, GQ, and The New York Times, and 84 of his short stories have been collected in Enough Rope.
His newest William Morrow bestsellers are “Small Town,” a novel of post-9/11 New York, and the soon-to-be-published “The Burglar on the Prowl.”
Larry is a Grand Master of Mystery Writers of America, and a past president of both MWA and the Private Eye Writers of America. He has won the Edgar and Shamus awards four times each and the Japanese Maltese Falcon award twice, as well as the Nero Wolfe and Philip Marlowe awards, and, most recently, a Life Achievement award from the Private Eye Writers of America. In France, he has been proclaimed a Grand Maitre du Roman Noir and has twice been awarded the Societe 813 trophy. He has been a guest of honor at Bouchercon and at book fairs and mystery festivals in France, Germany, Australia, Italy, New Zealand and Spain, and, as if that were not enough, was presented with the key to the city of Muncie, Indiana.
Larry and his wife Lynne are enthusiastic New Yorkers and relentless world travelers.
I tried to get him to wrestle with the 5 questions:
Alfred Hitchcock used to appear in his films. Have you ever made a character like yourself in a book?
Only in the sense that every well-realized character has an element of me present.
What is the best bit of writing advice you have ever received?
To thine own self be true. Fella named Polonius told me, and I can’t thank him enough.
If Dickens did have a website, what would it be like?
Quite advanced, I suspect, as he was skilled at self-promotion. And maddeningly repetitive, like much of his work.
What is the weirdest thing you ever did with your Societe 813 trophy?
All I do with any award people are nice enough to give me is put it on the shelf, which doesn’t strike me as terribly weird.
That’s it? That’s only 4…what gives?
I’m afraid I could only find four of these I could bear to answer.
