Enough of Sorrow
Page 14
Now as to why this was a book I was able to write, well, you can puzzle that out if you want to, but don’t look to me for an answer. But when my Nightstand connection cut out, and I had a wife and two kids to support, I decided to resume my career as a lesbian. I also decided, for reasons that elude me, to do so on the sly.
First, though, I had to write a book, and shortly I wrapped up Warm and Willing—although I didn’t call it that. I forget what I did call it, but I remember that I hung some sort of title on it and wrapped it up and sent it off to John J. Plunkett, editor-in-chief at Midwood Tower. I enclosed a covering note from Jill Emerson, the pen name I’d chosen. I was renting an office at the time, about a quarter of a mile from my house in Tonawanda, and I used the office address.
I already knew Jill could get mail there. Before I wrote the book, I’d had Jill Emerson join an organization called the Daughters of Bilitis, the nation’s first lesbian rights organization. I don’t remember much about the outfit—Jill was never all that active a member—but they had a publication called The Ladder, and it came to my office, addressed to Jill, in a plain brown wrapper.
Now why did I submit this book over the transom? I’d written no end of books for Midwood, and they were not a closed market in the manner of Nightstand. All I had to do was get in touch with Plunkett, or his boss, publisher Harry Shorten, and say I was looking for work. Unsolicited over-the-transom submissions never get published, and they rarely even get read, so what made me think I had a chance?
Well, see, I was pretty good at this. And, in fact Jill got a letter of acceptance and the offer of a contract almost by return mail. Within a week or two, anyway. Before too long she’d written a portion and outline of a second novel, which Plunkett accepted, and which was published in due course by Midwood, this time with the title I’d slapped on it, Enough of Sorrow.
The title’s from “Borrower,” a 1918 poem by Mary Carolyn Davies, a fine poet who’s pretty much forgotten these days. Here’s the full text:
I sing of sorrow,
I sing of weeping.
I have no sorrow.
I only borrow
From some tomorrow
Where it lies sleeping,
Enough of sorrow
To sing of weeping.
Those two books, Warm and Willing and Enough of Sorrow, are all Jill was destined to write for Midwood. A few years later she was back in business, writing three novels for Berkley’s new line of erotic paperbacks. Then she wrote a big mainstream Bucks County novel, The Trouble with Eden, published by G. P. Putnam’s Sons; I’ve always thought of it as the sort of thing John O’Hara might have done if he’d had no shame. And in 1975 Jill rounded things off with A Week as Andrea Benstock, a more ambitious mainstream novel set in my own home town of Buffalo, published by Arbor House, and serialized in Redbook.
If you read Warm & Willing first, I’m delighted you thought enough of it to have a look at Jill’s second effort. I think Enough of Sorrow may dig a little deeper, and I hope you’ve enjoyed it.
—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.
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.
Block and his wife, Lynne.
Block and Lynne on vacation “someplace exotic.”
Block race walking in an international marathon in Niagara Falls in 2005. He got the John Deere cap at the John Deere Museum in Grand Detour, Illinois, and still has it today.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
copyright © 1965 by Jill Emerson
cover design by Elizabeth Connor
ISBN: 978-1-4532-0931-8
This edition published in 2010 by Open Road Integrated Media
180 Varick Street
New York, NY 10014
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