ON THE ROAD
The Daily Blog

I LATEST BLOG I ARCHIVE I

Saturday, May 8
Seekonk MA

Done.

With the tour. . .and, in a few minutes when I hit the Send button, with the blog as well. When I decided to keep a web diary of the tour back in mid-March, I was by no means confident that I'd get around to it more than half the time. But somehow I've filed entries night after night.

Tonight's event was at the library in Bourne, which is on Cape Cod, if just barely. And, while the people who showed up couldn't have been nicer, there could have been more of them. It was the lightest turnout of the past two months. I didn't count, but I think there were twenty people in the house. I don't know why it was that few, but neither do I know how come 240 people showed up a few weeks ago in Indianapolis.

It would have been nice to go out with more of a bang, but this way at least I'm not sorry the tour is over. Yesterday, buoyed by a great afternoon in Portland, I was wishing I had another week or two of this ahead of me. Now, providentially, I don't.

But I'm looking forward to London, and to a side trip to the Channel Islands, and to coming home. And then to Ragdale in June and July, and the next book, if I can figure out what it's going to be. And I'll keep you posted, but via the newsletter, and at civilized intervals. The next blog, Dear Friends, will have to wait for the next book tour.

LB

Return to top

Friday, May 7
Lowell MA

What a wonderful day, clear and bright and crisp. I spent the morning driving up from Lowell to Portland, where I had a TV shot to tape at 11 with Rob Caldwell on Channel 6, with a brown-bag luncheon at the Portland Library to follow. It was an easy drive on traffic-free Interstates all the way. New England is prized in the autumn, and justly so, with the hardwoods putting on that astonishing color show, but spring here is hard to top, with those bare ruined choirs just leafing out and the grass at the side of the highway a vivid green that's hard to find this side of County Longford. I'll tell you, I could wax poetic, if I didn't watch myself. . .

A hundred people showed up at the library, and an enthusiastic lot they were. Among them was Steve Steinbock, whom I haven't seen in a while; he has an interview with Stephen King in the current issue of Ellery Queen. My last visit to Portland must have been ten years ago---I flew in for a signing at a mystery bookstore that has since gone to Mystery Bookstore Heaven---and, when my publisher couldn't locate a local media escort, Steve filled in very capably. I've run into him a few times since then---he's a regular at Bouchercon and other conventions---but it was good to see him again on his home ground.

Once again, my three cartons of books and shirts were significantly lighter on the way out of the library than they'd been coming in. The stock on hand, replenished during my break in New York, is starting to run low again. But I'll have plenty for the Bourne Library tomorrow evening, and I'd just as soon sell the lot, because that's the end of the tour. I wrap up around nine, drive to a motel in Seekonk (wherever that is) and head for home Sunday morning.

One more talk to give, one more blog to write, one more night in one more motel. Then home, and off to London the following day.

LB

Return to top

Thursday, May 6
Lowell MA

Had a light turnout tonight at the Pollard Memorial Library here in Lowell. (A beautiful example of Romanesque architecture, incidentally, with some stunning Civil War murals. There are some remarkable buildings housing libraries in this country.) I couldn't figure it out at first, and then it dawned on me that tonight was the concluding episode of Friends. Davenport, you may recall, was similarly afflicted by the finale of The Apprentice.

Earlier, I pretty much took the day off. I did get out briefly to go to the Whistler Museum, housed in the artist's birthplace. I felt it was the least I could do, as I've been telling a marvelous anecdote about James McNeill Whistler once or twice a day for the past two months.
Whistler, I learned, did all he could to disassociate himself from Lowell, where he spend the first nine or ten years of his life. He claimed he'd been born elsewhere, either Baltimore MD or the Russian city of St Petersburg. I don't know why---Lowell strikes me as a perfectly charming town, and a rising star these days, with a burgeoning art scene and a downtown residential-loft renaissance.

Just two more days left and the tour's over. The time went in a hurry. When I get a chance, I really have to write some sort of email thank-you notes to the librarians and booksellers who made it all work so smoothly. Knowing me as I do, I wonder if I'll get around to it.
Probably not. . .

There's a writer I know who, every time she does a signing, sends the store owner a handwritten thank-you note. Well, good for her. As far as that goes, there's another writer who, every time he signs a goddam book, adds an adorable little original drawing to make the whole moment special for the purchaser. Good for him, too. Good for both of them, I say, and may they get together and bore each other senseless.

I'm going to bed.

LB

Return to top

Wednesday, May 5
Lowell MA

And a happy Cinco de Mayo to all concerned! I've been signing books all day and dating them 5-5-04, and just now recalled that it was a holiday.

It was Back On The Road Day for me. I picked up a Ford Taurus from Hertz this morning, a mere slip of a thing compared to the Trailblazer, but more than enough cargo space for a four-day five-event tour. And it has the NeverLost system, which I must say I love, especially at night when you otherwise would have to turn on the dome light to read the MapQuest directions. This very patient woman talks to me and tells me when to turn, and when I screw up she's perfectly calm and pleasant about it. "Re-calculating route," she says, and then resumes telling me where to turn.

I spoke at a Friends of the Library brown-bag luncheon in Simsbury CT, then headed north to Odyssey Books in South Hadley MA. There I had an interesting request from John Hoda, ex-cop turned private investigator; he'd printed up a copy of a musing of Scudder's from Hope to Die and wanted me to sign it so he could frame it and hang it on the wall. It was, as it happens, a favorite passage of mine; It's in the first chapter, if I remember correctly, and in it Scudder muses on the value of imagination, deeming it indispensable to a detective. I suppose I was writing from the heart, in that I consider imagination the writer's most important asset. That it should resonate richly for a professional detective was enormously gratifying to me.

You know, it's almost embarrassing to admit how glad I am to be back on tour. I'm going to miss this when it's over in a few days.

LB

Return to top

Saturday, May 1
New York NY

Home again, and glad to be, and I wasn't planning on blogging tonight, but I remembered what I forgot to enter the night before last, at the library in Cleveland.

During the Q&A, one fellow in the first row wanted to know exactly what goes on in a writers' colony.

"Pretty much non-stop sexual activity," I said.

That got a laugh, but nothing compared to the roar that greeted the remark of a gentleman on the left: "Doesn't your hand get tired?"

LB

Return to top

Friday, April 30
Buffalo NY

I got up early this morning, and arrived in Buffalo in time to eat breakfast before I was due at Buffalo Seminary. I met Malcolm Watson, who'd invited me, and joined him and his writers' group for lunch.(Only a few of them were able to attend; of a student body of 160, something like 35 are in the writers' group.) Then at 2 pm I gave my talk to the entire student body and faculty. I was, I have to tell you, a little uncertain about the whole enterprise. I'd decided to give my standard tour presentation---a brief reading from PROWL, a talk about the origin and evolution of the Bernie Rhodenbarr series, and a Q&A---instead of trying to tailor a presentation to this particular audience, and I didn't know if it would go over. These were high school kids, after all, and when I was their age I had the attention span of a corn flake. And they didn't know much about my work, and probably cared less, and lines that drew laughs from a roomful of fans at a library might very well fall flat as a flounder at a high school assembly.

But that's not what happened. I'll be damned if they didn't pay close attention throughout, and they laughed in all the right places, and asked good questions. They're outstanding kids, and I get the feeling they're going to an outstanding school. The enthusiasm of the faculty seems a pretty good indication of that. I'll tell you, it made me want to have some more daughters so I could send them there.

This evening I was at Barnes & Noble, and a good crowd showed up, including a cousin and some friends. Jeffrey Dick, the pastor who hosted me at his church in South Haven, Michigan, is a Buffalo boy, and it was a treat to meet his parents, who turned up tonight. (But the hard thing was making myself believe that it was only a week ago tonight that I was in South Haven. I've been in so many places since then that it seems as though it must have been at least two weeks, if not three.)

I sold a surprising amount of stuff, too, given that I've got so little left. I won't be bringing the Blazer home empty, but it's not far from it.

I'm about ready to get home, too. It's a false ending, in that I'll be heading out again Wednesday morning for four days in New England. But I'll have a few days back in New York, and I may not feel the need to bat out blog entries for the next several days. We'll see.

LB

Return to top

Thursday, April 29
Cleveland OH

I wasn't going to come to Cleveland this tour. I was here a year ago, with SMALL TOWN, and I don't like to return to a city too soon. But there was a library that really wanted me to come, and the date fit logistically, so we booked it. But I allowed for the possibility of a small turnout.

So 95 people showed up, and they had to trot out extra chairs to hold everybody, and I sold a ton of books, which was doubly surprising because I had hardly anything left to sell.

I'm bushed, and I've got an early start tomorrow. I have to drive to Buffalo, where I'll be speaking to the student body of Buffalo Seminary, the girls' prep school mentioned in Lauren Belfer's novel, City of Light. I grew up in Buffalo, and spent long hours lusting after girls from Sem, so all of this takes a little getting used to.

Tonight, once again, I got to tell the story of the woman with the cats. Well, why not? It's a great story.

LB

Return to top

Wednesday, April 28
Yellow Springs OH

It's funny---I did two events today and it still somehow felt like a lazy day. I think it may be because I didn't have to do any driving. Steve and Nancy came to both the noon signing at Books & Company and the evening gig at the Dayton library, and they drove both times, and all I had to do was sit there. No maps to read, no directions to follow, no traffic to contend with. I talked some, I answered questions, I wrote my name, but that's all I did, and I think at this point I could do all that in my sleep.

You know, I don't believe I've mentioned the piece I have in the current issue of the Village Voice. If my trusty webmaven drops in a link at the end of this blog entry, you can go read it for yourself. It's a sort of personal overview of the whole phenomenon of signed books, a very different business now than it was in the not-so-distant past. It occurs to me that I might include the essay in THE INK-STAINED HIGHWAY---which, on the basis of your reactions and my own further thoughts, I think I will go ahead and write before too long. (If you missed the earlier entry, TISH will be a pamphlet of tips for authors on tour.)

TISH indeed. I even like the acronym. . .

I'll be home on Saturday. I've got Cleveland tomorrow, Buffalo the day after, and then I drive to New York May 1. I'll be off again on the 5th, knocking around New England until the tour wraps on the 8th, but at least I'll have a few days at home first. And, much as I'm still enjoying this, I won't be sorry to see the New York skyline through the windshield.

And I'm running out of things to sell. I'm down to two of the XL T-shirts and two paperback copies of TELLING LIES. The only items in good supply are the Subterranean Press edition of TANNER'S TIGER, Jerrold Mundis's BREAK WRITERS BLOCK NOW, the audiobook version of TELLING LIES, Oxford University Press's GANGSTERS SWINDLERS KILLERS & THIEVES---have I mentioned that the title reminds me of an early Cher song? And Large T-shirts---I've still got a good supply of those.

Really getting down to the seeds and stems, as we used to say. . .

LB

P.S. Trusty Webmaven sez CLICK HERE to read LB's Village Voice essay, Signature Collection, from their 4/28/04 issue.

Return to top

Tuesday, April 27
Yellow Springs OH

Now this was a day that got better as it went along.

It almost had to. Late last night in Lexington I realized that I'd left something important in my hotel in Louisville.

Like Keller, I'm a stamp collector. We collect similarly---worldwide, 1840-1940. We both use the same Scott catalog, and it serves us both as a checklist; by circling the numbers of the stamps we have, we employ the catalog as an inventory of our collections. Keller takes the book along with him on his travels, in case he drops in on a stamp dealer, and so do I.

That's what I left in Louisville. Useless and worthless to anyone but me, but it would take me well over a thousand hours of tedious work to replicate it.

So I called the hotel last night, and got nowhere because Housekeeping was closed, and because the clerk on the desk didn't take much of an interest. And I called back first thing this morning, and didn't get much farther, because Housekeeping didn't respond to my Voice Mail message, and all the desk clerk could tell me was that there was no stamp catalog on the Housekeeping cart. So I got in the car and drove back to Louisville---fortunately I didn't have a scheduled event until 3 pm in Union KY---and I got the same non-message from the desk clerk and manager when I arrived, whereupon I asked if anyone had thought to look in the bloody room, and of course no one had.

So could we do that? No, because the room was occupied. Could we call the room? We did, and no one answered. Since there was no one there, could we have a look-see? No, because that would be violating the tenant's privacy. Well, hell, the maid would do that when she made his bed, wouldn't she? I convinced the manager to go look, but couldn't convince him to let me tag along. He went, and then called and made me describe the book at tedious length, and finally allowed as to how just such a book was on the desk, where I'd left it. Duh. But it was there, and I was so glad to see it again I forgot to be mad at anybody. If Keller had been there, I think it would have turned nasty. . .

Then on to Union, where I gave a talk at the Scheben branch library; a small turnout, which was no surprise on a weekday afternoon, and some ardent fans (and very nice people) on the library staff. My presentation felt a little stiff to me, and evidently to the audience as well; lines that usually get laughs just sort of lay there.

That dampened my spirits some, as did all the driving and the length of the day, and I was tired when I got to the Groesbeck library in suburban Cincinnati. I sat in a staff member's office until it was time to go on, and pretty much nodded out in his chair. They woke me up and stuck me in front of a good-sized audience, and some sort of magic happened, and I was really switched on and so was everybody in the room. Go figure. And the capper was a moment at the end with Cassandra Plott, a quilter who's working on a Bernie Rhodenbarr quilt; she's promised to send a photo when it's completed---it looks pretty good already---and we'll post it on the website. Meanwhile, she gave me a mini quilt, which is destined for a spot on the wall of my office.

Then on to Yellow Springs, where I'll spend a couple of nights with Steve and Nancy Schwerner, close friends of mine since we all went to Antioch College together many years ago. Coincidentally or not, Steve and Nancy are the dedicatees of Bernie's debut, <b>Burglars Can't Be Choosers</b>. It's always a delight to see them, and never moreso than tonight. And it's going to be a pleasure to get to sleep. . .  

LB

Return to top

Monday, April 26
Lexington KY

This was an interesting day, albeit an exhausting one. I drove from Louisville to Richmond, where I had lunch with Christine Delea and four of her students at Eastern Kentucky University. Then I talked about writing to a roomful of students, and finished in time to drive up to Lexington, check into my motel, and get over to the Beaumont library and give another talk. I was tired when I got to the library, but it's the damnedest thing: put me in front of an audience and I perk right up. I was a whole lot peppier after my gig than I'd been before it.

Then dinner with an old friend, Chris Newman, who moved here two years ago. He's a barbecue maven, and we went out to one of the local spots, and agreed that Lexington is not quite ready to contend for the title of Barbecue Capital of the World. But it was good to get caught up.

Whatever energy I got from the library audience has worn off now, and I'm ready to call it a day. Tomorrow's a tough one---two libraries in one day---so I think I'll try for a good night's sleep in preparation.

LB

Return to top

Sunday, April 25
Louisville KY

Today was another doubleheader. The day game was at the Louisville downtown public library, where I had a nice crowd. Craig Buthod introduced me, and asked how many people had read my work, and all but one hand went up. (No, let me amend that. Half the hands in the room went up, because nobody raised more than one hand. Oh, never mind.) I gave the talk I've been giving throughout the tour, reminding myself that just because I've given it once or twice a day for almost six weeks doesn't change the fact that everybody else in the room was hearing it for the first time. And it does vary somewhat, because different things get left out or included on any given day. Somehow or other, it stays fresh enough to keep me from putting myself to sleep.

This evening I had a good responsive crowd at Barnes & Noble, a store that my friend Elaine Munsch manages. I met her when she had a store in Cleveland, where she hosted a signing. Then B&N gave her a store in Louisville, her home town, and I signed here on the RYE tour five years ago. She's a self-proclaimed Lawrence Block stalker, and has turned up at signings in Dayton and Indianapolis.

Elaine's also a writer, and a mainstay of the Ohio River Valley chapter of Sisters in Crime; she presented me with a copy of the chapter's new book of Kentucky Derby-related crime stories, Derby Rotten Scoundrels, which includes a story of hers.

Tomorrow should be interesting---an afternoon session with student writers at Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond, then a library in the evening in Lexington. I'm having lunch with several of the students before my event, but I didn't want to get the same questions I'll be getting later on---or, indeed, any questions at all. So I made a rule---no questions, and they're gonna have to do all the talking at lunch. Should be fun---you'll get a report tomorrow.

LB

Return to top

Saturday, April 24
Indianapolis IN

An extraordinary day. I had a little trouble finding the Glendale library---it's in a mall, upstairs of a Staples---but it was certainly worth it. Huge turnout, somewhere between 235 and 250, according to librarian Marilyn Martin's count. Early on I used to figure that the smaller an audience was, the easier it was to talk to. Not true at all. The more people you've got in front of you, the more receptive they become, the more readily they laugh, and the more fun it is for all concerned. This was a terrific group of people, and they had a great time and bought a lot of books.

Then tonight I was at Jim Huang's store, The Mystery Company. Jim had a store in Kalamazoo until he moved to Indy a few years ago---he's the guiding genius of Drood Review---and it was good to see him again, along with the overflow crowd that turned up. Then a steak dinner with an old friend, and now a few minutes to write these lines before I go to bed so I can get up and drive to Louisville.

First, though, it's time to declare a winner in the limerick contest. In case you didn't know there was a limerick contest, well, don't get your knickers in a twist, because neither did I. But in THE BURGLAR ON THE PROWL, Bernie supplies two lines of a limerick about a fellow named Mapes, and told his unseen audience to finish it if they were so inclined, and, alas, several of you have done so. And all of you are witty folk, although some of you have a better grasp of metrics than others. But there's one clear winner in the group, and he's Fred Tobias, whom I knew years ago when he and I and a composer were talking about turning Bernie into a Broadway musical. Here's Fred's effort:

THERE ONCE WAS A VINTNER NAMED MAPES
WHO AFTER MANY ROMANTIC ESCAPES
TRIED POPPING THE CORK
OF A LASS FROM NEW YORK
WHO ENDED UP SQUEEZING HIS GRAPES

I hope that ends the limerick contest, but something tells me it won't.

LB

Return to top

Friday, April 23
South Haven MI

I really didn't know what to expect tonight. When I floated the idea of a library tour in a newsletter last year, one of the first responses was an invitation from Jeffrey Dick, pastor of a Congregationalist church in South Haven, which turns out to be a charming village of 5000 on the shores of Lake Michigan, twenty miles or so north of Benton Harbor. We found a date that fit, and today was it, and I showed up this afternoon, checked into a genuinely charming hotel, and spent a few hours exploring the town and encountering more than a few posters with my picture on them. None of them, I'm pleased to say, on the Post Office wall. . .

At 6:30 I went over to the church to set up my books and tapes and T-shirts. I could have walked there, but not with all the stuff I'd have had to carry. I met Jeffrey, who wasn't hard to spot in his Bernie T-shirt, and found we'd grown up perhaps a mile apart, I in Buffalo, he across the city line in Kenmore. It's always a pleasure to meet a fellow who doesn't have an accent.

I figured it would be a light crowd, maybe 15 or 20 people, and that would have been fine. But 52 folks showed up, and they laughed a lot and hung on every word and asked good questions. Phil Newman, the good buddy and former law partner of my cousin Petie the Gambler, drove over from Detroit, and there were others who'd come a fair distance, along with a contingent of South Haven residents, including the proprietor of the Hidden Bookshop, in which I'd done some pleasant browsing earlier.
So it was a terrific evening,

I'll want an early start tomorrow, as Indianapolis is a good ways off, and I have no idea what time it is there. Indiana drives everybody crazy that way, because it's impossible to remember what part of the state embraces Daylight Savings Time and what part regards it as the work of the Devil, and the easiest thing is just to wait until you're there and then find a native and ask him what time it is. My friend Pat says that when it's eight o'clock in New York it's 1948 in Cleveland, but I'm not sure if there's an equivalent formula for Indianapolis.

The hell with it. I'm going to bed, and mot a moment too soon.

LB

Return to top

Thursday, April 22
Palos Heights IL

I drove down from Skokie this morning and left time for more traffic than I encountered. I wound up early for a cable TV taping at City Hall, a format that was new to me: two reporters from two different suburban newspapers, Donna and Elena, sat at a table with me and took turns asking me questions, which I dutifully answered. This was all videotaped for airplay later on, and when we were done the two women went off to write their stories. I guess that makes three birds with that particular stone, and that strikes me as pretty good.

I spent the afternoon at my motel, doing a load of wash, a chore I find curiously satisfying. I noticed, though, that my toothbrush had mysteriously disappeared. It wasn't in the bag with the rest of my toiletries. It was a nice toothbrush, and relatively new, and while it wouldn't be terribly difficult to replace, and I hadn't bonded emotionally with it or anything, I wondered what the hell had become of it.

The evening event, held at Alan B. Shepard (think Astronaut) High School while the new Palos Heights library is under construction, went very well, and afterward I went out to dinner with librarian Mary Johnson and her husband, Greg. And I mentioned the toothbrush---I don't know why---and Greg volunteered that he had a dozen spares, that his job for some reason brings an abundance of toothbrushes into his life, and on the way to return me to my car he stopped at their house and bestowed four toothbrushes upon me, in assorted colors. And yes, I've learned to rely upon the kindness of strangers, but I nevertheless regard this as at least as remarkable a coincidence as those by which Bernie was sustained in THE BURGLAR ON THE PROWL.

LB

Return to top

Wednesday, April 21
Skokie IL

Since I got back from California, I haven't had to get on a plane. But I did have to go through airport security today at O'Hare, where I'd been invited to do a stock signing at Shannon Walker's Hudson News bookstore in Terminal 3. I had to park so far from the terminal that I'm counting it as a Gym Day, and then Shannon met me and I got to take off my shoes and empty keys and pens out of my pockets. A lot to go through to write my name in some books, but at least I didn't actually have to fly anywhere. And it was fun to see Shannon again. The woman's a dynamo; if I owned a bookstore, I'd give it to her to run.

On the way back to my hotel I stopped for a late lunch at a Korean restaurant on Greenwood, and had as good a meal as I've had in ages. A big bowl of beef soup, with an array of little side dishes. (I don't know what they were, having long since gotten over the need to know what something is in order to eat it.) The dish was marked as hot and spicy, and when I ordered it the waitress said, "You like spicy," not questioning me, but showing her own enthusiasm. The food was incandescent, and I was glowing myself by the time I left.

There've been a lot of questions this time around on Bernie's name and where it might have come from, and I guess I'd never realized before that it might be unique, but a week or two ago I did a Yahoo search to see if Bernie had any cousins, and turned up not a single Rhodenbarr. I said as much last night in Highland Park, and got this email today from a fellow named Bob Levi:

"At one point during the evening, you mentioned that you recently had done a Yahoo! people search and were unable to find any Rhodenbarrs listed. I'm a curious fellow and decided to try my own Internet search.
So I did a U.S. search through a multiple listing search engine and here's what I found -

"There's a Bernard Rhodenbarr listed in switchboard.com in Marcus Hook, PA. Note that the above website allows for an 'Instant Criminal Check for Bernard Rhodenbarr.' Now THAT'S funny.

"There's no other Rhodenbarr listed anywhere else in the U.S.! So the question, Dr. Anthony, is, "Was the Marcus Hook's Bernard Rhodenbarr's mother a fan of the Burglar Series?" If he was born after 1977, she might have been!"

Well, anything's possible. What I find myself wondering is if the fellow exists. The phone and address are listed in that name, all right, but maybe he's like Winnie the Pooh, living under the name of Sanders. I mean, one Rhodenbarr on the planet, and his first name happens to be Bernie?

LB

Return to top

Tuesday, April 20
Highland Park IL

A nice easy day today. I taped a cable show in Highland Park this morning with Gilda Lesser, then did nothing much until it was time to return to Highland Park for the library gig this evening. Dreary weather, which I thought would cut the crowd, but 50+ folks turned up, including a very nice fellow named Lawrence Block, an attorney and cellist. I inscribed a book to him and signed it "The Other Lawrence Block."

They all seemed to enjoy themselves; they asked good questions, laughed enthusiastically in all the right places, and then bought lots of books and T-shirts. I've been waiting on two more boxes of books---Lynne shipped me ARIEL, which I've run out of, and TANNER'S TIGER, which is running low, and I'd thought they'd be here today but they didn't show. I hope they arrive tomorrow, because Thursday morning I'm out of here, with or without them.

Some good news from Hollywood---something new, which came out of the meeting I had at Warners when I was out there the first week of the tour. I can't talk about it yet, but today's news was very encouraging. And, speaking of things I can't talk about, I have a feeling I know what book I'm going to write next. And not a moment too soon, as I've got about six weeks before it's time to sit down and Have At It. But I'm a long way from being certain it's the one, and even if I knew for sure I'd keep it to myself at this point.

Once again I had a very pleasant dinner with a librarian, in this case Susan Dennison of Highland Park. And once again my dinner companion was bright, personable, and extremely attractive---and, alas, very married. When we parted, I got to drive back to Skokie in a real frog-strangler of a downpour.

And so to bed. . .

LB

Return to top

Monday, April 19
Libertyville IL

A pleasant drive from Moline, on wonderfully empty I-88. My hotel's in Skokie, and it'll be home for three nights running. The only other time this tour that I stayed in one place that long was at the Hyatt in Hollywood, and that was a full month ago. I actually unpacked my suitcase this afternoon.

A week ago PROWL went back to press for a fourth printing, and I don't know why it's taken me this long to mention it. I'll be quicker to tell you that I've got three books on the local bestseller list in Birmingham, Alabama---THE BURGLAR ON THE PROWL, the paperback of BURGLARS CAN'T BE CHOOSERS, and the trade paperback of TELLING LIES FOR FUN & PROFIT. No wonder I left my suitcase in Birmingham---I obviously didn't want to leave the place!

Another thing I've been meaning to mention: Collectors bring interesting items to be signed, and every once in a while I see something I haven't seen in years---a first of NOT COMIN' HOME TO YOU, for instance. But a few days ago---I don't recall where or when---someone turned up with something I've never seen before, at a signing or anywhere else. It was an Advance Reading Copy of the Dark Harvest first hardcover edition of the first Scudder novel, THE SINS OF THE FATHERS, with the Stephen King introduction. The proud owner said he'd been told Dark Harvest only had 30 of them printed up, and that's 30 more than I knew about. I didn't think they made up any of them. Fascinating, and further proof that you just never know what's out there.

A good event tonight in Libertyville. I have three library events in as many days, in communities not all that far apart, and thought they might hurt each other, but there were only a few empty chairs tonight. And Candace Biancalana told me later the three events would bolster each other; each has a large enough community to draw from, and folks who can't make one event can go another day. Sounds good to me.

LB

Return to top

Sunday, April 18
Moline IL

The day started with breakfast a deux in Terrace Hill. The First Lady of Iowa scrambled eggs for herself and for me, and served up ham of the sort I haven't tasted since I was a boy. (We were Reform Jews, and didn't observe the dietary laws, and had plenty of ham and bacon. Nothing, however, with the word "pork" actually in it---never a pork chop or pork roast. For some reason I never thought to ask my mother why.)

Driving east on I-80 would have been a piece of cake but for the winds, which threatened to blow the Blazer all the way to Kansas, if not to Oz. There's a machine in a rest area that owes me $2.50--- it didn't give me change as it was supposed to---but I think I can get over it. I don't want to remind people of the chap Mark Twain mentions in Puddin'head Wilson, a chronic grumbler who, having found nothing else to bitch about, complained that there were too many prehistoric toads in his coal. (Thanks, Dan!)

I'd been to Moline a few days ago to tape a TV program, and I remembered to wear my John Deere cap to the signing, but took it off right away to avoid the Dukakis effect. I didn't need the cap; the folks were already tickled that I'd mentioned Moline in THE BURGLAR ON THE PROWL, a fact of which I was not aware myself. But there it was on Page 51, a passing reference but a mention nonetheless, and several people asked me to sign their copies right on that page. They were a wonderful audience, laughed in all the right places and asked some great questions. One woman wanted to know how I'd researched the erotic scenes in SMALL TOWN. And they snapped up just about everything I had on the table.

And then I got back to the motel in time for the Sopranos. I never did get lunch, unless you count the packet of nuts from the treacherous vending machine, so I really ought to wrap this up and go get something to eat before everything nearby closes. A good day, I must say---and off to Chicagoland in the morning.

LB

Return to top

Saturday, April 17
Des Moines IA

I'm writing these lines in Terrace Hill, the extraordinary Victorian wedding cake of a house that serves as Iowa's Governor's Mansion. I dropped in after my afternoon signing at Borders, and Christie Vilsack, Iowa's First Lady, was waiting for me, suitably attired in a BERNIE RHODENBARR STOLE MY HEART T-shirt. She's been a fan for years, I'm pleased to tell you, and after I dropped my bags in my room I joined her and her husband, Tom, on the East Porch for a glass of iced tea and as much conversation as we could fit in before I had to rush off to my library gig in Ames.

Up until then, the day was a hectic one. I drove from Burlington to Iowa City, where a misunderstanding had the folks at Prairie Lights thinking I'd be there from noon to one, while Borders was expecting me at two. Since the two cities are 120 miles apart, I'd have needed a helicopter and a tailwind to make it. I got to the bookstore a little early, shook some hands and signed some copies of PROWL for a batch of early birds, had a nice reunion with Prairie Lights' Paul Ingram, and left at 12:15, and can only hope any of you who showed up after that hour were content to receive one of the books I signed before I left. (Or that you'll be able to come catch my act in Moline tomorrow night.)

I got right onto I-80 and put the hammer down, doing my impression of Craig Breedlove breaking the land speed record. Well, not quite, as I didn't want to turn up at Terrace Hill asking the Governor of Iowa to fix a speeding ticket for me. I got to Borders at 2:05, remarkably enough, read and talked some and signed books, and came here. Then on to Ames, where I had a good turnout at the library, with Big Table Books selling PROWL and a good selection of paperbacks, while I hawked my own wares as shamelessly as ever. Afterward librarian Lynne Carey and I went out for barbecue as good as I've ever had anywhere and talked travel; she and her husband are as compulsive in that regard as my Lynne and I.

Then back here again, to a guest suite on the second floor. What a perk, and what a happy alternative to the motels that have housed me along the way. I'll tell you, I couldn't be happier in the Lincoln bedroom---and I didn't have to write a big check to get here, either.
Just a few books over the years. . .

LB

Return to top

Friday, April 16
Burlington IA

Last night's turnout in Davenport was a little light, no doubt because almost everybody in America was watching the season finale of The Apprentice. There's a definite fascination in watching a show in which Donald Trump is the most nearly sympathetic character. I'd have been watching it myself if I'd had my druthers.

I crossed the big river this morning and taped a PBS show with Susan McPeters in Moline. It was supposed to air today and Sunday, to aid the Sunday event at the Moline Library, but it got bumped to next week, by which time the Moline event will be but a memory. So it goes. Maybe all those Donald Trump fans from Davenport will come. . .

I let Mapquest work out my route to Burlington, but the exit they gave me was closed for construction, so I wound up taking a road running along the Illinois side of the Mississippi. I found myself remembering Trevelyan's line about the old Roman roads: "Straight as a die, flat as a fritter, going from nowhere to nowhere." And no, of course it wasn't "fritter." I doubt George Macauley Trevelyan ever used the word fritter in his life, and I'm afraid I can't recall what he said it was as flat as. It was in an essay on Roman Britain, included in a book called Clio: A Muse.I read it forty years ago, and I've thought of the line often since then and can never get it quite right, and it's frustrating. If someone wants to refresh my memory, I'll be grateful for the next forty years, if not eternally.

Tonight was the fundraiser for the Friends of the Burlington Library, and I'd say the library's fortunate in its friends. A large turnout, and they bought a whole lot of copies of PROWL and a slew of T-shirts.

It was funny---I almost always want my introduction to be shorter than it is, but tonight they hadn't picked someone to introduce me, so the woman at the podium got a little flustered and said, "Well, I guess nobody's going to introduce you, so why don't you just go ahead?" And I did, and it was fine, all things considered. They were a great audience, given to rich bursts of laughter. And then, because I never eat much before I speak, I took myself to the Chinese restaurant next door to the motel where I'm staying. You're taking your alimentary canal in your hands when you order Chinese food in the boondocks, and Burlington's a town of only 30,000, which is pretty boondockish, but I wound up with a bowl of hot and sour soup and a plate of beef with orange flavor, either of which would have been perfectly acceptable at Hunan Pan or Sung Chu Mei. So if you're ever in Burlington, grab a meal at the Great Wall, on Kirkwood near Roosevelt. Uh, you don't have to tell them I sent you.

LB

Return to top

Thursday, April 15
Davenport IA

"At least you get to see some of the country."

That's one of the things people say when they hear about this tour---it's a distant second to "You must be out of your mind"---and the thing is, they're wrong. I don't really get to see much of the country. On the usual book tour, all you see are airports and hotels and bookstores. On this one, I see motels and Interstate highways and libraries. . .and bookstores.

The Interstates are a godsend, no question about it. They get you there in a hurry, and I haven't got a whole lot of room in my schedule for stopping and smelling the flowers, or even looking at them. So I take the Interstates, and I eat at whatever restaurant is closest to my motel, and it works fine that way.

When I'm traveling for pleasure, I take secondary roads. And I did that today, coming from Beloit to Davenport. I wasn't in a hurry, for a change, had no media dates, nothing at all until this evening's appearance at the Davenport public library. And Illinois Route 2 looked promising, following the Rock River through some pretty countryside.

Poking along, I was reminded of the two years Lynne and I spent driving to and fro across America, living without a fixed address, staying at budget motels and letting serendipity steer the ship. Maybe the memories led me to stop at the John Deere Historic Site, in Grand Detour, Illinois. (I didn't make that up, and you can look on a damn map if you don't believe me. The French named it for a bend in the river. "The river is so beautiful it turned to look at itself," they said. Well, that's the French for you.)

Admission was $3, and it's hard to pay three bucks for anything and feel overcharged, but I thought it might feel the tiniest bit steep to go look at a house John Deere once lived in. But I paid my money, and found out I was soon to embark on an hour-long guided tour, which was great value for money but more time than I really wanted to invest in the enterprise. "See the movie," I was told, "and don't miss the blacksmith, because he puts on a hell of a show. And then you can cut and run if you have to."

The movie was a painless twelve-minute overview of the life of John Deere, a journeyman blacksmith from Vermont who devised a plow the prairie earth wouldn't stick to, and probably did as much to further settlement of the Louisiana Territory as Jefferson (who bought it) and Lewis and Clark (who explored it). And the blacksmith was one Longfellow would have recognized, a mighty man with large and sinewy hands, plus a great line of patter and the skill to fashion an aspen leaf out of a steel rod, and make the whole process entirely comprehensible.

I figure the movie was as good as the one I paid seven dollars to see in Montgomery, and the blacksmith's show was worth $15 easy. That put me $19 to the good, which is just about what I spent in the gift shop on a hand-forged horseshoe made in that very blacksmith shop, a John Deere baseball cap, and a little packet of mixed nuts packaged in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The cap's green with yellow logo, and goes well with the BURGLAR ON THE PROWL T-shirt that is my daily costume, so I could wear tonight, or somewhere down the line. But, all things considered, I probably won't. I can buy baseball caps, but when I go so far as to wear them I always feel disconcertingly like Michael Dukakis.

I've got the library in a couple of hours, but I'll wait until tomorrow to write about it.

LB

Return to top

Wednesday, April 14
Beloit, WI

I don't know if it makes me dedicated or compulsive, but here I am, writing my blog by hand. AOL is impossible tonight -- I won't waste ink explaining it all -- and I'll write this out and fax it to my beloved webmaven, and she'll post it; and that will be that.

Great day today. Kate Baker, Assistant District Attorney and Bernie Rhodenbarr fan, took me to a sexual assault trial in Janesville. My guess is the guy's gonna get off -- which, in a manner of speaking, he seems already to have done. It's remarkable how tedious real trials are compared to Law & Order.

Then Kate took me to buy a watch. Mine did its number again, picking up a radio signal and resetting itself to Eastern Time. It'll be right when I get home but I didn't want to wait.

Huge crowd at the Janesville Library, upwards of 80 people, and the boxes of books I carried in were a lot lighter going out. Last night I expected a big crowd and got a small one, tonight my expectations were low and the turnout high. Shows what I know. They gave me a basket overflowing with Wisconsin goodies -- no, not just cheese -- and it came in handy, as the hotel restaurant was closed by the time I got back.

LB

Return to top

Tuesday, April 13
Madison WI

Oxford University Press published GANGSTERS, SWINDLERS, KILLERS & THIEVES this month, and made every effort to contact stores and libraries where I'll be appearing so that the book will be available. Now and then the books get there before I do, but so far they mostly haven't. I thought that might happen, and bought a couple of cartons from them and added them to the SUV's burden, and more often than not I bring them in and offer them for sale. When I do, I explain my role in the book's creation: I selected the fifty miscreants whose biographies appear in the book, wrote a page of introduction for each of them, added an overall intro for the volume and, finally, put the bios in order.
The last, I say, wasn't terribly difficult, as I used alphabetical order.

I have often thought of the miracle of Alphabetical Order, and found myself digressing on the subject tonight, at the library in Madison. If you think about it, an alphabet could exist perfectly well without the letters existing in a generally accepted order. Numbers have to be in order, because they bear a specific relationship to one another, but A could as well come after B as before it, for all the function the letters serve in their holy task of grouping together to form words. Some unsung hero, content to blush unseen and waste his fragrance on the desert air, decided it would be A, then B,. then C, etc., and got everybody else to go along with his idea.

And if he hadn't, how would we arrange books on a library shelf? What would the phone book look like?

The wheel? Yeah, it was a pretty good invention. Basic, useful. Hard to have a car without at least three and preferably four of them.

But if you want to talk great inventions, give me alphabetical order.

LB

Return to top

Monday, April 12
Milwaukee WI

I had the day free until my 5 pm signing at Mystery One. No media, no driving, nada. I got some sun at a tanning salon, worked out at the hotel's gym, and walked a few blocks to a restaurant for lunch. After the schedule I've been keeping, the day felt wildly self-indulgent.

Phil Margolin followed me at Mystery One, but before he was due to arrive I was out of there and on my way to Schwartz's in Mequon, where a huge crowd had gathered. When it wrapped I had a dinner date with Mary Gielow, who has been my media escort on previous visits to Milwaukee.
We talked about other writers, dished a few of them, and dined well.

I mentioned the booklet I'm planning to write, The Ink-Stained Highway, Tips for Authors on Tour. She thought it a great idea, and wanted the chance to include a few tips of her own. "Publishers send young authors out," she said, "and a lot of them don't know what they're doing, and act as though they've been raised by wolves." Who knows, maybe the book will fill a need.

I'm off to Madison in the morning. A short drive, a noon signing at Booked for Murder, then a talk at the library in the evening. Then to bed, and on to Janesville in the morning, and. . .

Perhaps I ought to remind myself that it's a day at a time.

LB

Return to top

Sunday, April 11
Milwaukee WI

So I spent the day driving from the home of Budweiser to the home of. . .oh, Old Milwaukee, I suppose. Light traffic, predictably enough, and good weather, too. The thing about driving is it gives a person time to think, and I'm never entirely certain whether that's good or bad.

What I thought today, not for the first time, is that I'd like to write a little book---a pamphlet, really---which I think I might call THE INK-STAINED HIGHWAY / Tips for Authors on Tour. I have, after all, been doing this relentlessly since the late 80s, and I've developed no end of strong convictions on the subject, some of which might even be valid.

I'd print 500 or 1000 copies. Maybe sign and number them, which would give them an added cachet that might help justify charging $20 a copy, which I'd have to get for something with this sort of limited appeal. And I'd try to make it the kind of book that, if I'd read it fifteen years ago, it would have paid for itself several hundred times over by now.

Shouldn't take long to write, either. Crikey, I've spent enough time thinking about all this stuff.

I wonder if anybody'd want it. You know what? Let's try a straw poll.  I don't know how many of you are out there actually reading this blog, but if you're reading this, and if you think this might be something you might buy if I actually went ahead and did it, well, email me and tell me so. My response will be cursory at best, something along the lines of "Thanks, Jordan! LB" but at least you'll know you helped out. Head your email TOUR TIPS and send it to LB@lawrenceblock.com.

I'm not sure it's a good idea, spending all that time behind the wheel...

LB

Return to top

Saturday, April 10
St.Louis MO

No matter how many times you hear the same questions, every once in a while you get something new. The other day, at Burke's Books in Memphis, one woman came up to me and said, clearly disappointed, "I thought you'd be taller." I didn't know what to make of that. "Like Bernie," she added. I've never described Bernie, I don't think, and I'm sure I never said anything about his height. "You look taller in the picture," she went on, "so I expected you to be taller."

"He probably didn't expect you to be so fat," her husband volunteered. I don't know what he got when he got home later, but I have a fairly good idea what he didn't get.

I expected a good day with the St. Louis Sisters in Crime, and that's just what I got. We had a full house, and they asked a lot of good questions and made some interesting observations. Why, there was even someone there who liked Burglar, the Whoopi Goldberg film, and especially enjoyed Bobcat Goldthwaite's performance. Go know.

Tomorrow's a long day of driving, St. Louis to Milwaukee, but because it's Easter I don't have any engagements. Looks like a steak from Room Service and The Sopranos on the TV, and that sounds pretty good to me.

LB

Return to top

Friday, April 9
Memphis TN

Up early for the drive from Nashville and, mirabile dictu, my suitcase was waiting for me at the desk, dutifully overnighted by the Residence Inn in Birmingham. (And I mention them because, bless their hearts, they paid for the shipping themselves.) Also here, although it took them a little time to track them down, were four boxes of books Lynne shipped from New York, titles I'd run out of in the course of the tour: the Subterranean Press edition of Tanner's Tiger, the G & G Books limited edition of Ariel, and the Cahill edition of The Specialists. I've been discounting all three of these at $20 apiece on this tour only, and I guess that's a bargain---our website price for Ariel is $50 plus shipping, and the others are $30 for Tiger and $25 for Specialists. So the SUV, which had been getting lighter and roomier as the boxes emptied out and disappeared (although I can't say I noticed any great improvement in gas mileage) is now stuffed and heavily-laden once more.
But that's okay. You can't do business from an empty wagon, as my peddler ancestors would no doubt put it.

The shirts are selling down, too, although the three big cartons that hold them take up as much space as ever. We're out of XXL, and the mediums are getting low.

Bedtime. I'll want an early start tomorrow morning, as St. Louis is four or five hours from here and I have an afternoon library date with the Sisters in Crime. To which I'm greatly looking forward---the Sisters are always a great audience, tuned in and enthusiastic and knowledgeable. And then there's a good fight card on HBO tomorrow night, Zab Judah and one of the Klitchkos. No, not fighting each other, as either Klitchko weighs about three times as much as Judah. Never mind.

Had a good half-hour interview at the library this afternoon with Susan Gray, taped for both radio and TV. Earlier I did a live phoner with A Touch of Grey, the syndicated radio program. And a heartening crowd turned up at Burke's Books this afternoon, and bought a lot of books (but not a single T-shirt, though I don't know how they were able to
resist.)

LB

Return to top

Thursday, April 8
Nashville TN

What a nightmare. Got up, checked out of my Birmingham hotel, took a leisurely drive to Nashville, parked the car, opened the back. . .and discovered that I had left my suitcase at the hotel in Birmingham.

Don't ask, okay?

No way I could drive back for it, as I got here all of three hours before my dinner talk at the Nashville Library. No way I could go back for it tomorrow as I have a noon show in Memphis. And no way I could just live without it, as my laptop's in it.

I called Maggie, not entirely distraught, but by no means entirely traught, either. And five minutes later she called me back to report that the hotel had the bag, that they would overnight it to tomorrow's hotel in Memphis, and that all would be well.

Let us pray. . .

LB

Return to top

Wednesday, April 7
Birmingham AL

Amazing the pitfalls that await a touring writer.

I woke up this morning after a good night's sleep, and left the motel when my watch said 10:25. I was booked on the eleven o'clock news on Channel Thirteen, the local NBC affiliate, and hoped they'd take me toward the early side of the hour, as my program at Birmingham's downtown library was set to begin at noon. Mapquest said the station was under fifteen minutes away, so I'd be early. Assuming I could find the place.

Which turned out to be easier said than done. I could see their tower, but I couldn't get there, and one helpful chap gave me a strong push in the wrong direction. I finally go there at 11:04, which is really bad form; you want to get to media events at least ten minutes early, and I was four minutes late.

And then they took me and parked me in a room, and time kept passing, and I started to worry not about the TV show but about getting to the library by noon. I went back and bothered one young woman again---I'd already won her assurance that I'd be on in the first half of the hour---and she pointed out that the program didn't start until eleven, and it was only 10:38.

Well, not on my watch. On my watch it was 11:38.

Here's the thing. I had the right time all day yesterday. I'd dutifully set the clock ahead an hour for Daylight Savings Time Sunday morning in Jacksonville, then set it back an hour for Central DST Sunday night. And there it had remained, until sometime in the middle of the night it had sprung ahead an hour all by itself. It's one of those watches they advertise as never being wrong, because it resets itself magically with some Clock-of-all-Clocks in Boulder, Colorado. Well, somehow or other it chose last night to fix itself, when it didn't need fixing, and when I thought I was four minutes late arriving at the station, I was actually 56 minutes early.

They took me around 11:30, as promised, and the spot was a good one, and I would have been right on time at the library, except for the time it took to park the car and get from the lot to the auditorium. Close enough.

The talk went well, as did this evening's at Homewood, which was co-sponsored by Sisters in Crime and the Friends of the Library. So the day was a good one, but the start was a little unsettling. I think I'll throw my Space Age watch in the garbage and pick up a Timex.

Tuesday, April 6
Birmingham AL

I woke up this morning in Pensacola and will be going to sleep shortly in Birmingham. My only event today was between the two, in Montgomery. Ordinarily I'd have driven to Montgomery around midday, checked in at my motel, hung out there until it was time for my store appearance, and then returned there after dinner. Emailing and, God help us, blogging, can fill up any extra hours at the room, and a nap's never a bad idea.

But I've got a media date in Birmingham tomorrow morning, so it made sense to drive here after my stint at Capitol Books and News, so I had time to kill and no place to kill it. I got to the gym for an hour before I left Pensacola, and in Montgomery I went to the movies. I saw Taking Lives, with Ethan Hawke and Angelina Jolie, and I dozed off not long after it opened and missed most of the first half hour, during which nothing terribly important could have happened, because I had no trouble following it when I got back. And I left about ten minutes before the end, for fear of showing up late at the bookstore. I probably ought to do that all the time. Makes the whole business an exercise in imagination.

Small crowd at the bookstore, but they were enthusiastic, and boy did they buy T-shirts. Folks in Montgomery are going to be scratching their heads, wondering who the hell Bernie Rhodenbarr is and how he stole all those hearts. The other highlight of the day was lunch, at a little café on Route 29 in Century, Florida, just south of the Alabama border.
All the cops eat there, and everybody else in town with a lick of sense; buffet with three home-cooked entrees and four vegetables, all for $6.
I'd go there twice a week if it weren't so damned far from New York.

LB

Return to top

Monday, April 5
Pensacola FL

Well, this has been a long day. Up at five to be interviewed by Jim Carmack on the local TV station. I got there early and we had time for a nice chat off-camera. He's a fan of long standing, and that does make for a superior interview. Most of the TV and radio folk I've met are real pros, capable of doing a fine job even if they don't have a clue who I am, but it sure doesn't hurt when they know the work; the enthusiasm adds energy to the spot. Jim's a pro <i>and</i> a fan, and we had fun.

Then the library in Mobile, where a full house came to have lunch and listen to me talk about Bernie. You'd think the chomping would cut down on the laughter, but they were wonderfully responsive. They might still be asking questions if I hadn't had to wrap things up so I could get to Page & Palette in Fairhope, and then on to Barnes & Noble in Pensacola.

At Tallahassee yesterday, a woman named Judy walked in wearing a PROWL T-shirt. I know we've sold quite a few of them on the web, but it's still a surprise and a treat for me when somebody shows up at a signing wearing one.

A couple of pieces of good news today: Marilyn Stasio's review in the New York Times Book Review, coming this Sunday, is a honey; I've only seen an excerpt, but it looks from here like a flat-out rave, and I love it when that happens. And Barnes & Noble, I just learned, has the book on special nationwide, which means prime displays and 20% off. The chain reordered big last week, so I guess they're doing well with it. I love it when that happens, too.

I'm free tomorrow until my evening signing at Capitol Books in Montgomery, and that's only a couple of hours away. My motel's in Birmingham, I'll drive on after the signing so I can do media Wednesday morning, but that means I'll have nothing to do tomorrow afternoon and no place to do it. Maybe I'll find a gym and fit in a workout. Or go catch a movie. Or---dare I dream?---both.

LB

Return to top

Sunday, April 4
Pensacola FL

When I sign copies of PROWL, or any current book, I generally date them. That's what collectors seem to prefer, a date if the book's recently published, otherwise no date. Which made today a perfect one to sign books: 4/4/04.

So of course I only had one signing, and the turnout was light. Yesterday I signed a long ton of books, but that was 4/3/04. Still a nice date, but not the same.

Had a lot of driving today: Jacksonville to Tallahassee and then on to Pensacola after the signing, as I have to be at the local ABC-TV affiliate at 6 in the morning. Then on to Mobile for a library luncheon, an afternoon bookstore signing in Fairhope, and back to Pensacola for an evening store appearance.

Got a nice note the other day from John Sandford, who was kind enough to point out that my tour was insane. Hard to argue the point. . .

LB

Return to top

Saturday, April 3
Jacksonville FL

The last thing I needed the first thing this morning (and yes, I've been listening to Willie lately) was another email about Finian's Rainbow.

In PROWL, I referred to the song about loving the girl one's near. And I---or Bernie, if you want to be technical---identified it as being from My Fair Lady. Well, it's from Finian's Rainbow, and I knew that. I suspect Bernie knew it as well. But somehow it got past both of us, and my editor and copy editor and proofreader, and indeed everybody who saw it, and the book came out that way.

And so far six readers have let me know about it. Boy, do I ever know about it. We'll fix it in the paperback, and we may even fix it in future printings of the hardcover, although that's not as easy to manage as you might think. But one thing I don't need is to hear any more about it, and I know I will. Sheesh, the book's only been out there for two and a half weeks.

This morning I prepared a form email to respond to the next three hundred people who drop me a helpful line. I mean, I don't want to seem ungrateful here. All the people who've let me know about it did so as an act of kindness, and made a point of saying nice things about the book. They just wanted to be helpful, and they were indeed helpful, or at least the first one was. But. . .oh, never mind.

Huge enthusiastic crowd at the St. Augustine library this afternoon. Boy, did they ask questions. Boy, did they buy books. Astonishingly, my SUV's starting to empty out. I'm sold out of Ariel and Tanner's Tiger. I put in an urgent call to Lynne, and she's shipping me a couple of boxes in Memphis.

Of the making of many books there is no end, it says in the Book of Proverbs. Well, there's no end of the selling of them, either, but I suppose he saved that thought for the sequel.

LB

Return to top

Friday, April 2
Jacksonville FL

I'll be brief tonight; I have to go downstairs and get the wash out of the dryer. There's a sign disclaiming any responsibility for clothes left unattended, and while I'm not really anxious about my socks and T-shirts, there's something about this hotel that doesn't inspire confidence. The pair of slatterns behind the desk have a service ethic that hasn't been seen much since the grand old days of the Soviet Union.

I've been booking my accommodations through William Shatner's outfit, and in the main have been delighted with the results, but you can't win 'em all. And of course I'm here for two nights. When I got a gorgeous room at the Hyatt in Charlotte for the price of a tank of gas, I checked in, ran to a signing, got back in time to go to bed, and checked out at
5 am to make a radio date in Hickory. When I'm in a dump, I'm there for days.

At Flagler College this afternoon, a young woman asked me if I'd found a better soubriquet for myself than The Schmuck in the Truck. By Godfrey, people are actually reading this thing! Who'd have guessed?

I went away just then to retrieve my clothes. There's an enormous satisfaction in laundry, I find, and my schedule doesn't allow a lot of time for it. I don't have to worry about running out of shirts---I've got around 50 XL's in the car---but I'd rather stick to the ones set aside for my own use. I've worn precisely the same outfit every day since March 16th---a Bernie Rhodenbarr Stole My Heart T-shirt and a pair of black Gap jeans. I'm out here trying to sell the book, and trying to peddle the shirts, too, as far as that goes, so I'd be crazy to wear anything else, but I wonder how much I'll enjoy my costume by the end of the month. Come to think of it, I wonder if I'll enjoy anything by the end of the month.

I'm gonna go fold my shirts. One thing I'll say for myself, I have become very damned proficient at folding a T-shirt.

LB

Return to top

April 1, 2004
Savannah GA

What a perfect day.

I didn't expect much when my wake-up call came at 5 am. A cab took me to the TV station---I didn't want to try driving before I had my eyes open---and the same cab whisked me back to the motel after my spot. I dove under the covers, and if I didn't exactly sleep for the next three hours, neither was I exactly awake.

I spent most of the day online, booking hotels for later in the month and putting the last touches on a Village Voice essay on the phenomenon of signed books---look for it in about two weeks. I got out some, and walked to a nearby strip mall on Abercorn Street, where I lunched at the S&S cafeteria and tanked up at Starbucks. Around six I drove over to the library on Bull Street and set up my wares, and at seven the program started.

Packed house, somewhere between 90 and 100 people, and wildly enthusiastic. They asked good questions and they asked plenty of them, and the evening ran long before I forced myself to cut off the questions and move on to the signing. Which also ran long---these folks bought a lot of books.

Then off to dinner with Chip Larkin, a friend from the old days at Armstrong's, whom I'd neither seen or had word of in a quarter of a century. He's living in Savannah now, and teaching philosophy at St.
Leo's, and we somehow took up where we'd left off. That doesn't happen often, and it's a joy when it does.

And I'd forgotten what a beautiful city Savannah is. I was here once before, when my daughter Alison was 10. We came for a few days just to have a look around. She's the one who had a daughter of her own in February, so there's been a fair amount of water under the bridge since then, or over the dam, or wherever it goes. Abercorn Street, with the median strip ablaze with azaleas in full bloom, and Spanish moss dripping from the trees, is about as good as it gets.

I suppose I'll get back to growling and whinging tomorrow, but right now I can't think of anything to grouse about.

LB

Return to top

Wednesday, March 31
Savannah GA

Well, actually, it's a quarter to two Thursday morning. This was quite a day---up early to do a radio phoner with Bill Edwards in Savannah, then a long drive to Lake City SC, a talk at their very impressive library, a hurried drive to Charleston arriving just in time for a second library program, a too-brief visit with Henry and Sara Rittenberg, two of my Charleston relatives, a couple of salmon sandwiches and a cup of coffee, and then another drive to Savannah, essential because I have a 6:15 appointment at a TV station downtown. Unfortunately you can't phone in a TV appearance. And there's another advantage radio has---you don't have to look your best.

One quick story, and then I'm outta here. Tuesday night, after the gig in Hickory, I was packing up the unsold books and schlepping them back to the car. A diminutive woman named Corky stepped up to give me a hand. I warned her that maybe the box was on the heavy side. "Please," she said, rolling her eyes. "I'm a librarian!"

LB

Return to top

Tuesday, March 30
Hickory NC

This is a very pleasant town, and the library's modern and gorgeous, one that a city ten times Hickory's size would be proud to have. But finding your way around the damn place---the town, not the library---is close to impossible. All the streets have essentially the same name---SE 2nd St, SE 2nd Ave, NE 2nd St, NE 2nd Ave, SW 2nd St, SW. .
.never mind, you get the idea. I had an early morning radio show with Hal Row, and I couldn't find the station. I stopped a cop---usually it's the other way around---and he pointed me in the right direction.
"You'll be able to see the tower," he said, "and when you do, just sort of try and drive toward it."

The program went very well, although the Barnes & Noble people who handled book sales got a little confused; they brought about forty copies of Enough Rope and almost as many of Small Town, both of which have been out a while, and only a dozen or so of PROWL. I sold some books and tapes and T-shirts and got out in time to get to the Outback Steak House. Dr. Atkins would be proud of me.

Something funny happened last night, and I forgot to tell you about it.
The cartons I use to bring books in from the car are Evian boxes---they're the perfect size, quite sturdy, and have handles that make them easy to carry. I always have some around, as Lynne and I buy the stuff by the case and go through it as if it was. . .well, uh, water.

When people at stores and libraries ask if they should have anything special for me, Maggie generally tells them all they have to supply is an audience and a bottle of water. Evian for preference, she often says.

So last night I walked into Park Road Books in Charlotte, toting one of my Evian boxes, and a young woman rushed up to me, her face a mask of concern. "Oh, we have water," she assured me. "We have plenty of water for you." It took me a moment, and then I realized she thought I'd brought a dozen 1.5-liter bottles to ward off thirst during the signing.
"It's books," I explained, and that seemed to mollify her. Though, come too think of it, she could have told me that they had plenty of books, too.

LB

Return to top

Monday March 29
Charlotte NC

I just finished up at Park Road Books, a great store where I last visited in 1999, after spending a night sleeping in the car in a parking lot in Union SC. Lynne was with me, and we were fleeing Hurricane Floyd, and a lot of other folks had the same idea; there wasn't a motel room to be had anywhere between Jacksonville and Atlanta. But the sun came up the next morning, figuratively if not literally, and we had a memorable breakfast in Buffalo SC and added another Buffalo to our collection.

But I digress. The signing went well tonight. I brought along a lot of very slightly impaired copies of TELLING LIES, the hardcover first edition. We sell perfect copies on the web for $60, but I have quite a few with slight dust jacket damage, and I brought a couple of boxes along. People having been snapping them up for $20, and it doesn't break my heart to see them go. I'm not whining about the price of gasoline---it's less than four times what it was when I learned to drive fifty years ago, and everything else has gone up a whole lot more than that. But this monster SUV, laden down as it is with more books than your average bookmobile, can pass everything on the road but a gas pump.
Every time I sell a book, I remind myself that cash weighs a lot less than books. I'm lightening the load with every sale.

Saw some friends last night in Raleigh. Well, anybody who comes to a signing is a friend, that goes without saying (or would, if I hadn't just said it), but these folks were already friends---Terry Foster, at whose Raleigh home Lynne and I watched Oscar de la Hoya give away a decision to Felix Trinidad back in 99, and Frank and Connie Hammond, whom we met on an Alaskan cruise in 2001. Frank and I were part of a group of four who went out fishing, and we each took home a nice king salmon. Good to see them all again.

There were some folks tonight who'd come by last time I was in Charlotte. Haven't got a clue who might show up tomorrow at the library in Hickory. I've never been to Hickory before, and I'm eager to go, although a later hour would suit me fine; I have to be at a radio station at 7:45 to go on the air at 8, and that means I have to get up.
. .well, early. Let's leave it at that.

Time I got to bed. . .

LB

Return to top

March 28, 2004
Raleigh NC

Two signings today, at 2 pm at the Regulator Bookshop in Durham, then 7 pm at Quail Ridge in Raleigh. I've been to both before, and they're excellent independent bookstores. Each turned out a good crowd, and they were good audiences, laughing in all the right places. They bought a lot of books, too.

I had lunch with Charisse Coleman, a buddy from my stay at Ragdale two years ago. She and her husband Ted figured they lucked out, because they could come to the signing, take me out for a nice lunch, and still get home in time for the Duke game. Which you'd have thought would kill the house at Quail Ridge, but if more people had showed up I don't know where they would have put them.

There are quite a few doubleheaders on the schedule, and today was one of them. The drive down from Charlottesville, while long, was blissfully free of traffic, and the weather was perfect, but I was still wiped out by lunchtime and kept yawning in the face (literally!) of very good company. I was even more wiped out after the drive to Raleigh, and after I'd set up my table of books and T-shirts and went to hide in the office until showtime, I was half asleep in the chair.

But all you have to do is put me in front of an audience and I turn into the Energizer bunny. The fatigue goes away and I'm magically on, and could stay on forever. And now, of course, I'm back at my motel, and I watched half of The Sopranos and all of Deadwood, and I can't keep my eyes open.

LB

Return to top

March 27, 2004
Charlottesville VA

A long day today. No driving, other than the couple of miles from my Holiday Inn to the Omni, where the Virginia Festival for the Book was held. But I was on panels at 2, 4, and 8 o'clock, with a signing session following each panel. It was enjoyable, and panels are never difficult, but three of them in a single day can tire a person. Tired this one, anyway, and I'd better get to bed, because I've got a 2 pm signing in Durham, and it's not exactly right around the corner.

A local independent bookseller, Creatures and Crooks (they specialize in sf and mystery), handled book sales at the festival and sold out of PROWL. (Demand was brisker than they could have guessed; one woman bought nine copies, so that she could get a 27-book collection signed, and that sort of thing puts a serious dent in a store's supply.) Happily I was parked nearby, and could fetch a carton of PROWL firsts from the Blazer. And I had a sack of Prowl T-Shirts with me, of course, and sold a few of those. (I have a lot of other books, but it didn't seem appropriate to peddle them at this particular venue; they'll be on the table tomorrow, though, at The Regulator in Durham and Quail Ridge in Raleigh. Once you cop to the fact that you're shameless, it's a lot easier to act accordingly.)

Time to go to bed. I've got something wonderful to read---a memoir of my friend of many years, the folksinger Dave Van Ronk, who died in January 2002. He'd been working on it with Elijah Wald, who has now completed the editing, and who invited me to write an introduction. I wish Dave were still around, I wish I could sit in a club again and listen to him sing, I wish I could sit and talk with him in the Vivaldi.
I wish a lot of things, but nobody gets to edit the Moving Finger, and everybody gets the finger sooner or later. The book's the next best thing, it sounds just like the man, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to write the intro. I don't know what I'll say, but I'll think of something.

LB

Return to top

Friday, March 26
Charlottesville VA

I took the day off.

Well, sort of. It was a travel day, from Harrisburg to Charlottesville.

That's a substantial drive, made more so by a detour to Alexandria. But the detour seemed worth it, because it gave me the opportunity to see---and even hold---my youngest fan, Claire Lenore Pouliot. She's not even scheduled to be born until April 10th, and here she is, perhaps not dressed to kill but certainly dressed to burgle. (She made an appearance February 9, and just came home from the hospital Monday.)

I was the perfect Visiting Grampa---I turned up, had a shower, gave Alison some clothes to wash (just a small load, I've only been traveling a couple of days), checked my email, ate lunch, held the kid, seized the photo op, got Brett to bungee-cord the Blazer's bumper so it won't fall off at the slightest provocation, and hit the road. If I were Brett and Alison, I'd send me a bill.

Between the detour and some wretched traffic on I-95, I got to Charlottesville about two hours late for the cocktail party to welcome the mystery writers participating in this year's Virginia Festival of the Book. Knowing mystery writers as I do, I figured the party would still be going on, but I also figured it could go on without me.
Tomorrow I'm on panels at 2, 4, and 8, with a reception at the UVA president's house, and that's plenty. I'm looking forward to it, not least of all for the pleasure of the company of my colleagues, but I can wait and see them tomorrow.

Hey, is that a cute kid or what?

LB

Return to top

Thursday, March 25
Carlisle PA

Day didn't start well. Trying to get out of the E-Z Pass lane at a toll gate for the bridge to Pennsylvania, I had, well, not a fender-bender, because nothing got bent. Call it a bumper-thumper. My bumper got dislodged by a passing truck. I pressed it back where it belonged, and that should have been that; the guy on duty said it was a non-reportable accident, with no damage whatsoever to the truck and none to speak of to my vehicle, but the jackass truck driver insisted on reporting it to the police because otherwise I might file a claim and he might get in trouble. I couldn't disabuse him of this notion, and it cost us both an hour we'll never get back. I don't know about him, the son of a bitch, but I had a use for that hour.

Maybe I've listened to too many Dave Dudley songs, but I thought truckers were the last rugged individuals, free men leading free lives.
This guy looked the part, with a beard and a pony tail and a trucker logo on his jacket, but I bet his tape deck's full of Barry Manilow.

Made me fifteen or twenty minutes late for the Bosler Library in Carlisle, where a very nice audience was waiting. Because I got there late, the program ran a little later, and I just had time to check into my motel and grab a shower and shave before it was time to keep my evening appointment in Harrisburg. Nice people, large turnout, and besides buying PROWL and a host of other books from Jeff Wood of the Whistlestop Bookshop, they snapped up my T-shirts and out-of-print items in a very satisfying manner.

I get a day off tomorrow. A lot of driving---to Alexandria to see my new granddaughter, then on to Charlottesville. But no talks to give or people to smile at or books to sign.

LB

Return to top

Lebanon NJ
Wednesday, March 24

The day started with the news that PROWL will debut at #21 on the New York Times hardcover fiction bestseller list. (The extended list, which appears on the web, runs to 35 titles; only the top 15 make it into the paper's print edition.) This is obviously terrific news, and the folks at Morrow are ecstatic about it.

Bestseller lists are curious. There are quite a few of them, and it's wonderful to appear on any of them, but when people talk about The List they mean the Times. No one knows why. A lot of people believe the USA Today list most accurately reflects total sales, but it's hard to evaluate because everything's lumped together, fiction and non-fiction, paperback and hardcover, juvenile and adult. You can have the twelfth most popular hardcover nonfiction title on their list and the only number anyone notices is the one that indicates your book came in #147 overall, which somehow doesn't sound all that impressive.

I was too busy to pay much attention. This morning I picked up my SUV at Hertz, and I only wish I'd had someone with an engineering degree to help me load it properly. It's crammed full of books and tapes and T-shirts, and if some damn fool hijacks it, I can't imagine what he'll do with it all. Maybe it'll turn up on eBay. . .

I'd thought I was going to get a Ford SUV, that's what Hertz usually rents, and I was all prepared to be the Schnorrer in the Explorer. But it turned out to be a Chevy, and I can't come up with anything catchy.
The Hell Raiser in the Trail Blazer? I don't think so.

Great turnout at the Hunterdon County Library. There was no bookseller on hand, so I handled sales myself, hawking copies of PROWL and GANGSTERS KILLERS SWINGERS & THIEVES, along with some of the backlist titles from the back of the Blazer.

It's a splendid vehicle, even if it doesn't rhyme with anything punchy.
And God knows it's capacious. If it were any larger, come to think of it, I could be the Schmuck in the Truck.

LB

Return to top

and away we go. . .
Tuesday, March 23
New York City

What I can't figure out is how I can possibly have everything ready on time. First thing tomorrow I pick up the car, load it to the roofliner with books and T-shirts, and set out to conquer the world, or at least that part of it bounded by Portland ME, St Augustine FL, Ames IA and Janesville WI.

Meanwhile, I'm busy with media. Yesterday I signed stock at three mystery bookstores (Black Orchid, Murder Ink and Mysterious Bookshop) and three Barnes & Nobles (East 86th, Broadway & 82nd, and Lincoln Square). Today I already taped a show with Peter Bochan at WBAI and now I have two phoners to do; I just got off the phone with Cathy Idzerda of the Janesville Gazette, and have a radio show in a few minutes with Garry Deeb in Kenmore NY, with Rick Harmon of the Montgomery AL Advertiser waiting in the wings. Then Lynne and I have a concert to go to at Carnegie Hall, but I'm not sure we can fit it in. I'm not even sure I can fit dinner in. Lunch was a bag of peanuts. . .

But I'm not going to complain, because good things are happening. Two different eBook companies have reported that PROWL is high on their charts already, and I just got my copy of the New Yorker, with a stunning full-page color ad for the book. And here I am, basking in the glow of it all, and blogging away while I wait for the phone to ring.

LB

Return to top

March 21, 2004

Sunday night, March 21, and I'm home.

Yesterday was remarkable, really. After skewing their demographics for three days, I checked out of the Hyatt on Sunset at 9:30, and signed stock a few places en route to the Oxnard Library, where I did my dog-and-pony show for a nice crowd. Then we hurried back down to Thousand Oaks, where Mysteries to Die For was crowded with energetic folk. I met a long-lost cousin---well, not really. A gentleman introduced himself as Ralph Block and confided that he wrote some non-fiction. I asked if he was the Ralph Block who wrote about REITs (real estate investment trusts) and said I had his book. We decided that we must be cousins, and I inscribed his copy of PROWL accordingly.

By the time I got out of there MTDF was sold out of Lawrence Block books, and we had to push to get to the Mystery Bookstore in Westwood in time for the tail end of Shelley's store anniversary party. They were down to the seeds and stems, as we used to say, by the time we rolled in. They had cartons of things for me to sign, including the first copies I've signed (or even seen) of GANGSTERS, KILLERS, SWINDLERS & THIEVES, the Oxford University Press true-crime collection I edited. The signing ritual at Shelley's is so streamlined and efficient that the pen always seems to be moving, and by the time I was done my hand ached. Not, I suspect, for the last time this tour.

I got to Ontario Airport in plenty of time for the 12:15 am flight back to JFK, and got four-plus hours of wonderful sleep; I sat down, we took off, the flight attendant brought me a cup of coffee, I closed my eyes, and the next thing I knew they announced we were preparing for landing. I got off the plane fully rested, which never happens, and it was just as well because I had a packed signing this afternoon at Partners & Crime, and a ton of stuff to do around the apartment.

I spent the evening watching HBO---The Sopranos and Deadwood---and probably will miss both for the next six weeks, which leads me to wonder at the point of watching tonight. Lynne offered to tape everything, but I told her not to bother. If I came home with all that to watch, it would feel like a job.

I pick up a Hertz car Wednesday morning and get this show back on the road, and my dance card's booked solid from now until then---a meeting with a pair of producers, a batch of local stock signings, and at least three phoners that I know about. I probably won't blog between now and Wednesday. But then again I might. I can see where this could get to be habit-forming. . .

LB

Return to top

March 19, 2004

I sometimes wonder how effective book tours are. I'm not convinced anybody really knows one way or the other.

Thing is, I'm having a good time. And why not? A few hours ago I spoke to 80 people at the library in Glendale. They laughed, they applauded, they asked interesting questions, they gave every indication of thinking the world of me, and afterward a comforting number lined up to get books signed.

This sort of experience gives you a wonderfully skewed view of the world and your own importance therein. All I see are the eighty people who showed up and laughed and applauded. I don't have to think about the hundreds of thousands in the immediate area who don't know me from Adam's off ox, and wouldn't voluntarily read a word of mine if they did. They exist, and God knows their numbers are legion, but they're home watching TV, whereas the only people I encounter think I'm terrific.

Besides a store signing and a library appearance, I signed hundreds upon hundreds of books at store drop-ins. Because I do the backlist paperbacks as well, I get to write my name an awful lot in the course of a day. Well, I don't suppose I'm in much danger of forgetting how to spell it.

LB

Return to top

March 18 2004

One of the best things about touring is that every once in a while an old friend turns up. It's easier nowadays to stay in touch, thanks to the miracle of email, but over the years I've lost touch with a lot of friends, and now and then a book signing turns into a reunion. A few years ago, my girlfriend from my freshman year at college showed up at a Borders in Cleveland. "I picked up the paper this morning and saw you were coming," she said, "and I tried to figure out how I could lose twenty pounds in nine hours."

In 1964-5 I had my only honest job since college, working as a writer/editor in the coin supply division of Whitman Publishing, in Racine, Wisconsin. We rented half of a duplex on the northern edge of town, and became very friendly with the neighbors on either side. I maintained contact with them after I moved back to New York, but that didn't last, and I lost touch. Well, a few years ago Jerry and Rhea Yares caught up with me at M is for Mystery in San Mateo, and just the other night Jerry Easton came to my signing at Mysterious Galaxy. Damn, it was good to see him!

I sometimes wonder if book tours really sell books---I don't think anybody knows for sure. But when I get a chance to rekindle an old friendship this way, I don't really give a rat's ass about the economic sense of it all. I'm having too much fun to care.

Today went well---a good turnout at Book Carnival in Orange, a large and enthusiastic crowd at the Downey library. I'll probably be bitching before long about the killing pace of the tour, so this might be a good time to remind myself how lucky I am to be doing this.
LB

Return to top

Another day, another blog March 17, 2004

It would have been nice to sleep later. Jet lag, I suppose, got me up, wide-eyed and bushy-tailed, at five this morning. My media escort, Ken Wilson, picked me up at 9:30 and we motored around Orange and Riverside Counties, signing stock and taking names. We were out where the stores were few and far between, and realized around four o'clock that we'd have to drive 45 minutes to the next store, and 45 minutes back, and that they'd only have backlist stock anyway.

"The hell with it," I said. "Let's go to a movie."

I think Ken was a tad shocked. He said he'd never playhed hookie before. We found a multiplex somewhere in the Inland Empire, and the only picture with the right time frame was Starsky and Hutch. So we went in, and damned if it wasn't worlds better than we had any reason to expect it to be. Quick and well-made and laugh-out-loud funny.

Maybe it wasn't really as good as we thought it was, maybe stolen sweets are best. Whatever, we had a good time.

In Corona, 75 people turned up to hear me talk about Bernie, and they seemed to enjoy themselves. A responsive audience makes a difference; I went on quite a bit longer than I'd planned. Enjoyed myself, too.

Tomorrow I've got a meeting with a producer at Warners, that an afternoon signing in Orange and an evening program at the library in Downey. And the beat goes on. . .

LB

Return to top

March 16th - The First Blog!

What a splendid start! My flight left New York before the snow arrived, and got to San Diego a half hour ahead of schedule. A fine signing at Mysterious Galaxy, a few drop-ins around town, a cheese steak at a food court in a mall somewhere, and a drive through the fog to Oceanside, where the library is celebrating its hundredth anniversary. A good turnout there, and I got to my hotel in Dana Point just in time for tea with my stepbrother and sister.

Finally got on line to find 77 emails waiting for me.

One of them was from my editor at Morrow, announcing that they'd celebrated Publication Day by ordering a third printing. I've been awake forever---got up at 4:45 New York time, and it's midnight here in California now, so you do the math. But good news does a lot to banish fatigue.

Lynne reports that the copies I ordered of GANGSTERS, SWINDLERS, KILLERS & THIEVES, just out from Oxford University Press, have arrived; I'll have them with me for the drive-around part of the tour which starts March 24, in case some stores and libraries don't get to order the book.

Whatever's left I'll offer on the web, for those of you who want autographed copies.

Blog, blog, blog. Am I really going to do this every night? Well, it's a day at a time, isn't it?

LB

Return to top

Site contents copyright 2006 Lawrence Block
Site Administration: Maggie Griffin Creative Enterprises
Site Maintenance: Dovetail  Studio