WEBVTT - Lawrence Block 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:03.440 This is me, Craig Ferguson. I'm inviting you to come 0:00:03.480 --> 0:00:05.920 and see my brand new comedy hour. Well it's actually 0:00:05.920 --> 0:00:07.360 it's about an hour and a half and I don't 0:00:07.400 --> 0:00:09.959 have an opener because these guys cost money. But what 0:00:10.039 --> 0:00:13.000 I'm saying is I'll be on stage for a while. Anyway, 0:00:13.000 --> 0:00:15.520 come and see me live on the pads on Fire 0:00:15.920 --> 0:00:19.680 Tour in your region. Tickets are on sale now and 0:00:19.760 --> 0:00:23.959 we'll be adding more as the tour continues throughout twenty twenty. 0:00:23.640 --> 0:00:24.960 Five and beyond. 0:00:25.600 --> 0:00:28.080 For a full list of dates, go to the Craig 0:00:28.120 --> 0:00:32.360 Ferguson show dot com. See you on the road, my DearS. 0:00:33.520 --> 0:00:36.760 My name is Craig Ferguson. The name of this podcast 0:00:37.120 --> 0:00:41.880 is Joy. I talk to interesting people about what brings 0:00:41.880 --> 0:00:48.000 them happiness. Welcome to the Joy Podcast. Welcome to the 0:00:48.080 --> 0:00:50.880 Kids Super Studios here in Brooklyn. I am your host 0:00:51.120 --> 0:00:56.360 Podcasts Craig Ferguson. My guest today is a great American writer. 0:00:56.520 --> 0:00:59.160 If you don't know his work, you're in for a tweet. 0:00:59.640 --> 0:01:01.440 And if you do know his work, you're in for 0:01:01.520 --> 0:01:05.560 a treat. His name is Lawrence Block. He's a friend 0:01:05.560 --> 0:01:08.759 of mine, but more importantly than that well, it depends 0:01:08.800 --> 0:01:11.520 how you look at it. But he's just a great 0:01:11.520 --> 0:01:14.119 writer and you should read him if you like to read. 0:01:14.280 --> 0:01:16.360 And if you don't like to read, then just listen 0:01:16.400 --> 0:01:19.399 to him talking today. And if you do like to 0:01:19.440 --> 0:01:21.800 listen to people talking and like to, I'll let you 0:01:21.840 --> 0:01:22.440 get on with it. 0:01:22.520 --> 0:01:27.000 Here's Larry Block. You told me like. 0:01:27.200 --> 0:01:30.520 Five minutes ago, ten minutes ago maybe when we were 0:01:30.560 --> 0:01:33.600 walking outside in the intense feet while why we've got 0:01:33.600 --> 0:01:37.959 a lot of beverages right, because we had got the 0:01:38.040 --> 0:01:44.360 dates wrong for this recording. Specifically, you said it was Thursday. 0:01:44.400 --> 0:01:47.680 I said it was the eighteenth. But Thursday is the seventeenth, 0:01:48.240 --> 0:01:50.640 and so you were right about Thursday and I was 0:01:51.000 --> 0:01:52.920 right about the eighteenth. I think we can agree that 0:01:52.920 --> 0:01:53.360 that's fair. 0:01:54.160 --> 0:01:56.800 We're here now, that's the main thing, all right, There 0:01:56.800 --> 0:01:57.120 you go. 0:01:57.200 --> 0:01:59.120 So you said to me outside as we were walking 0:01:59.120 --> 0:02:03.200 towards the subway to maybe go home and come back tomorrow, 0:02:04.480 --> 0:02:06.000 that you are retired. 0:02:06.240 --> 0:02:08.839 You're not going to write anymore. Is that right? That's true. 0:02:08.919 --> 0:02:13.520 I haven't written in gee, it's just about three years now. 0:02:14.720 --> 0:02:17.560 I feel like I've heard that from you before, though, No, no, no, 0:02:17.639 --> 0:02:20.160 there have been times I thought I was probably done 0:02:20.240 --> 0:02:25.720 writing novels and that, but this is categorically different, and 0:02:25.919 --> 0:02:31.920 it's it's curious in that in twenty twenty two I 0:02:32.000 --> 0:02:34.760 wrote two novels in the course of the one year. 0:02:35.200 --> 0:02:38.880 I wrote a book called The Burglar, The Burglar Who 0:02:38.880 --> 0:02:44.200 Met Frederick Brown, which is a nice way. I think. 0:02:44.400 --> 0:02:47.040 I haven't read that one. Oh well, what a treat. 0:02:47.080 --> 0:02:49.560 You haven't a treat. I haven't stared, right, don't tell 0:02:49.560 --> 0:02:55.400 me it. No spoilers, all right, no spoilers. But it's 0:02:55.800 --> 0:03:00.240 it's a fitting volume, I think, to conclude the series. 0:03:00.520 --> 0:03:04.639 The Barney series, the Bernie series. Yeah, yeah, that's and 0:03:04.680 --> 0:03:08.360 you've done with Scudder. Scudder, you finished a wild back, right, no. 0:03:08.320 --> 0:03:11.680 I wrote, I wrote a final volume of that in 0:03:11.760 --> 0:03:14.520 twenty twenty two. Also, I haven't read that either. 0:03:14.840 --> 0:03:17.360 I thought the Scudder one that you finished with was 0:03:17.400 --> 0:03:18.880 a drop of the hard. 0:03:18.639 --> 0:03:22.560 Stuff that had been the last one. But then, so. 0:03:22.760 --> 0:03:25.800 That's why I thought you'd retired before, because you said, okay, 0:03:25.840 --> 0:03:26.919 that's Scudder done. 0:03:26.680 --> 0:03:30.639 That well it seemed to be. But this the new book, 0:03:32.880 --> 0:03:35.200 I thought i'd send it to you, and I clearly 0:03:35.520 --> 0:03:38.680 did not. Sorry, maybe I go I'll get it tomorrow. 0:03:38.800 --> 0:03:42.520 It's called the Autobiography of Matthew Scudder. I do not 0:03:42.680 --> 0:03:47.280 have that. And what it is is a fellow that 0:03:47.400 --> 0:03:54.360 approached me about doing a short like three or four 0:03:54.400 --> 0:04:00.000 thousand word biography of Scudder, to write about the character. 0:04:00.840 --> 0:04:04.000 And I thought, I don't want to do that, and 0:04:04.600 --> 0:04:06.880 I thought about it a little more, and I thought, 0:04:08.760 --> 0:04:13.280 if Anyone's going to write Scudder's biography, should be the 0:04:13.360 --> 0:04:18.360 man himself. And I thought, I thought about it a 0:04:18.400 --> 0:04:23.599 little more and realized that what I wanted to do 0:04:24.279 --> 0:04:30.960 was a full length book and it would be Scudder 0:04:31.080 --> 0:04:35.200 telling his story. And the premise was that I've been 0:04:35.279 --> 0:04:39.680 approached to do this, that I the Lawrence Block for 0:04:39.880 --> 0:04:43.960 years has been writing books about Matthew Scudder which have 0:04:44.440 --> 0:04:52.560 represented slight fictionalizations of his cases and that and this 0:04:52.720 --> 0:04:58.719 is his Scudder giving his own memories. Do you go 0:04:58.839 --> 0:05:02.200 back over the books that you wrote for Scott particularly, 0:05:02.360 --> 0:05:07.760 some of them are referenced, certainly, but it's more filling 0:05:07.839 --> 0:05:13.280 in blanks than about his life and background and everything else. 0:05:13.680 --> 0:05:19.360 It's it may be the most enjoyment and satisfaction I've 0:05:19.600 --> 0:05:24.360 ever had sitting down, sitting down and writing it, and 0:05:24.400 --> 0:05:27.839 it's you know it's it's kind of meta, which is 0:05:27.880 --> 0:05:31.279 a word I generally avoid using because I don't think 0:05:31.360 --> 0:05:35.800 I or anyone else knows exactly what it is. No, 0:05:36.040 --> 0:05:40.080 it doesn't, you know. And and once it became the 0:05:42.400 --> 0:05:48.000 marks up Zuckerberg's new name for uh, for Facebook, it 0:05:48.200 --> 0:05:50.840 was even more reason not to use the word. But 0:05:50.920 --> 0:05:56.000 that I kind of kind of is what it is conceptually, 0:05:56.880 --> 0:05:57.520 it's a divice. 0:05:57.560 --> 0:05:59.520 I've seen before though a few times people use it 0:05:59.560 --> 0:06:05.240 from tank time in literature. I remember, uh Carvonicet used 0:06:05.240 --> 0:06:07.680 it with Kilgo Trout, didn't he the other way around? 0:06:07.720 --> 0:06:11.159 All kind of kind of yeah, there was an awareness, 0:06:11.400 --> 0:06:16.720 uh that way, But I think this is I had 0:06:16.920 --> 0:06:22.520 thought that this was the first time that a writer 0:06:22.720 --> 0:06:27.080 had who after a long standing series, had turned the 0:06:27.520 --> 0:06:32.200 the I think it probably is not quite Oh, it 0:06:32.279 --> 0:06:37.960 turned out that Seminon did something similar with McGray. Yeah. 0:06:38.200 --> 0:06:41.839 I got a hold of a copy of that to 0:06:41.920 --> 0:06:46.480 see what it was like. Unfortunately, well fortunately for my ego, 0:06:46.880 --> 0:06:49.560 it was lousy. It was it wasn't real. 0:06:49.800 --> 0:06:51.760 Honestly, a bit of Simon and a lot of those 0:06:51.800 --> 0:06:56.040 make Gray books. I'm like, you've that could use a rewrite. Yeah, 0:06:56.160 --> 0:06:58.559 a lot of a miss company out like one a week, 0:06:58.839 --> 0:06:59.200 you know, but. 0:06:59.600 --> 0:07:03.480 This it wasn't terribly interesting. But anyway, I did have 0:07:04.080 --> 0:07:09.160 a good time with it, and when I finished, I thought, well, gee, 0:07:09.160 --> 0:07:12.080 that was nice. I wrote two books in the course 0:07:12.120 --> 0:07:14.520 of a year. I'm pleased with both of them. I 0:07:14.560 --> 0:07:18.480 had a good time doing them. I'll probably write more. 0:07:20.440 --> 0:07:26.560 And as the weeks passed, it became clear to me 0:07:26.720 --> 0:07:28.960 that I was wrong about that, that I was done, 0:07:29.520 --> 0:07:33.320 that I felt really complete. This was a nice capstan 0:07:33.480 --> 0:07:36.000 for this Scudder series. It was a nice ending to 0:07:36.120 --> 0:07:40.040 the Bernie series, and I didn't want to write anymore. 0:07:40.240 --> 0:07:45.560 I've been doing this all the time for sixty five years. 0:07:46.520 --> 0:07:50.920 I've written more books than anybody could should read let alone. 0:07:51.000 --> 0:07:53.320 Have you any idea how many of there are? Do 0:07:53.360 --> 0:07:59.520 you know? Yes, because a fellow has done a marvelous 0:07:59.600 --> 0:08:06.360 job compiling a bibliography for me, and his list of 0:08:06.560 --> 0:08:12.160 book titles individual volumes of mine, which includes anthologies that 0:08:12.240 --> 0:08:15.360 I edited, and that they're probably about close to a 0:08:15.400 --> 0:08:18.440 dozen of those. It comes came to about two hundred 0:08:18.480 --> 0:08:21.720 and ten titles something like that. That's a lot of 0:08:21.760 --> 0:08:24.720 It's a lot of us. That's it's enough, you know, 0:08:24.800 --> 0:08:30.200 I feel I've written four. Yeah, well I think that's enough. Yeah, 0:08:30.600 --> 0:08:34.400 I think four is enough. Well, come to think of it, 0:08:34.480 --> 0:08:36.920 if I had made that decision early and I just 0:08:37.000 --> 0:08:38.720 saved myself a lot, a lot of work. 0:08:38.800 --> 0:08:42.200 Yeah, But it's interesting these two characters, Bernie rodenbar who's 0:08:42.240 --> 0:08:46.800 the kind of gentlemen burglar, and Matt Scudder, who's the 0:08:48.080 --> 0:08:51.000 in many ways an archetype for a lot of detectives 0:08:51.040 --> 0:08:56.160 who came after. Yeah, you know, the hardbitten, New York reformed, drunk, 0:08:56.520 --> 0:09:01.760 bad past detective. Both of these eyes. I have have 0:09:01.880 --> 0:09:04.839 a long history with you. When did you start writing 0:09:04.880 --> 0:09:07.720 because like, you started writing these guys in your thirties, right. 0:09:11.520 --> 0:09:15.120 I've thought you meant the nineteen thirties. Nineteen thirties. Did 0:09:15.200 --> 0:09:17.360 you start writing them in the night? That would be sure. 0:09:17.520 --> 0:09:22.520 I'm a detective shape, right. I started writing them in 0:09:24.280 --> 0:09:30.599 within about a year of each other. The characters were conceived, 0:09:30.679 --> 0:09:36.600 and I started writing about them in the the the 0:09:36.600 --> 0:09:37.520 mid seventies. 0:09:37.920 --> 0:09:42.440 It's interesting because I was I was a very I 0:09:42.520 --> 0:09:45.280 was a huge fan of Scudder right away, and Bernie 0:09:45.400 --> 0:09:48.240 was a slower burn for me because Bernie felt like 0:09:48.480 --> 0:09:51.800 it was a little more kind of almost PG Woodhouse 0:09:51.840 --> 0:09:54.400 and it's kind of like light on his feet type 0:09:55.200 --> 0:09:59.240 fun character. And because I'd come to you through Matt Scudder, 0:09:59.559 --> 0:10:02.600 I was like the grimy the New York streets and 0:10:02.640 --> 0:10:05.160 the yeah and the bad people and stuff. And then 0:10:05.200 --> 0:10:07.240 Bernie was was kind of I was kind of looking 0:10:07.240 --> 0:10:08.840 for that there and it wasn't there. And it wasn't 0:10:08.880 --> 0:10:11.720 until I had the same thing with with Woodhouse though. 0:10:11.840 --> 0:10:13.480 The first couple I read, I was like, what the 0:10:13.520 --> 0:10:15.960 hell is this? And then once you get into it, 0:10:16.000 --> 0:10:19.400 you go, this is actually great and actually in a 0:10:19.440 --> 0:10:24.840 weird way, is brilliant, unbelievable right, and contains an odd 0:10:26.120 --> 0:10:29.480 skewering of the British upper classes that I didn't spot 0:10:29.559 --> 0:10:30.000 at first. 0:10:30.160 --> 0:10:33.800 I mean, but it's it's so wonderful. 0:10:33.920 --> 0:10:37.600 Yeah, the kind of like the way he cuts up, 0:10:37.679 --> 0:10:41.920 the kind of doubt Nabby set is fantastic. 0:10:42.160 --> 0:10:47.760 Yeah. Yeah. Also heah evidently had a real resentment against 0:10:47.840 --> 0:10:52.840 older female relatives, Yes for sure. Yeah. Do you do 0:10:52.960 --> 0:10:53.760 that in books? 0:10:53.760 --> 0:10:55.719 Do you put people in books that you're angry at, 0:10:55.800 --> 0:10:57.240 like if you run across somebody? 0:10:57.240 --> 0:10:59.880 Did you ever do that with Bernie or with No? No, 0:11:00.120 --> 0:11:03.439 I don't think I ever have. If I have it's 0:11:03.679 --> 0:11:07.080 it's uh slipped. My mind has so many things too. 0:11:07.920 --> 0:11:10.199 But do you ever read the book? And I have 0:11:10.320 --> 0:11:17.720 no recollection of write now. No, well that's not entirely true. 0:11:18.240 --> 0:11:25.040 Early on, I did a lot of erotic paperbacks, you know, 0:11:25.120 --> 0:11:27.959 under pen name. I did tons of those. That was 0:11:28.000 --> 0:11:29.640 the way to earn money, right, it was like your 0:11:29.679 --> 0:11:36.280 only fans page. No, it was you liked erotic. It 0:11:36.320 --> 0:11:38.679 was what I did, and you know the it was 0:11:39.600 --> 0:11:43.679 it was to make money. But they're all to make money. Yeah, 0:11:42.960 --> 0:11:47.600 I guess that's your job, that's what you did. But 0:11:48.040 --> 0:11:53.760 some of those, in uh, later years, I've because I'm 0:11:53.840 --> 0:11:59.200 shameless and because Ego and Avarice are my two motivators, 0:11:59.200 --> 0:12:04.599 their stoken horse, for sure. Yeah, absolutely, I've I've reprinted, 0:12:06.559 --> 0:12:14.080 both electronically and in print printed form, all my early work, right, 0:12:14.679 --> 0:12:19.800 and and I figure, why not. There are people who 0:12:20.000 --> 0:12:24.720 like them, and that's that's fine with me. But doing that, 0:12:25.880 --> 0:12:30.040 I've had to determine what books were mine. And there 0:12:30.120 --> 0:12:33.720 was a stretch there where I engaged other people to 0:12:33.760 --> 0:12:37.080 write books under my pen name. Really yes, yes, this 0:12:37.360 --> 0:12:43.319 was back in the early to mid sixties. Okay, and 0:12:43.760 --> 0:12:50.840 some of those, you know, I don't remember immediately if 0:12:50.880 --> 0:12:56.920 I've written them or not. But it never takes more 0:12:56.960 --> 0:12:59.720 than reading a page, you know, for me to know 0:12:59.800 --> 0:13:01.560 what it's my worthy or no. 0:13:01.640 --> 0:13:04.400 Yeah, I suppose if you if your output is it 0:13:04.520 --> 0:13:07.000 like it's a fairly prolific output. 0:13:07.160 --> 0:13:08.240 You can't remember all that. 0:13:08.360 --> 0:13:10.160 I look at old episodes of Late Night, so was 0:13:10.200 --> 0:13:12.520 if something comes up from my old Late night show 0:13:12.640 --> 0:13:16.200 on the internet, I'm like, I have no recollection of that. 0:13:16.360 --> 0:13:20.840 None. I remember most of them, But there were stretches 0:13:23.679 --> 0:13:29.320 late in the game, in say nineteen sixty four or so, 0:13:29.440 --> 0:13:34.600 when I there was one time when my second daughter, 0:13:35.440 --> 0:13:41.800 my daughter Jill, was born and I had to pay 0:13:41.800 --> 0:13:45.720 the abstetrician. This was long enough ago so that people 0:13:45.800 --> 0:13:49.240 did not routinely have insurance and so that you could 0:13:49.360 --> 0:13:54.480 live without it. Yeah right, Yeah, So I had to 0:13:54.960 --> 0:13:59.760 come up with one thousand dollars to pay the abstetrician. Now, 0:14:00.040 --> 0:14:03.280 of course that would be the Copey right if you 0:14:03.400 --> 0:14:08.920 had really excellent, excellent coverage. Yeah. So I called my 0:14:09.280 --> 0:14:12.440 agent and I said, how can I earn a thousand 0:14:12.480 --> 0:14:14.800 dollars in a hurry because I want to pay this 0:14:14.920 --> 0:14:18.680 fellow's bill. And he said, well, I think Bill Hamling, 0:14:18.720 --> 0:14:23.600 who was a publisher of mine on outfit called Nightstand Books. 0:14:23.600 --> 0:14:25.520 He said, I'm sure he'd take an extra book for 0:14:25.640 --> 0:14:33.120 me this month. So I found three days and wrote it. 0:14:34.440 --> 0:14:37.640 You know what booking three days I did? Was any good? 0:14:38.080 --> 0:14:38.960 I have no idea. 0:14:40.240 --> 0:14:42.680 Were you taking any stimulants? 0:14:42.680 --> 0:14:49.280 It was the sixties. No, I did occasionally, but not then. 0:14:49.640 --> 0:14:53.480 It was a little later there that I started using 0:14:54.320 --> 0:14:58.480 dexamil occasionally when I wrote. But this time I wasn't 0:14:58.600 --> 0:15:04.920 using any stimulants, and I just I just went to 0:15:04.960 --> 0:15:11.600 the office and typed for about eight hours the first day, 0:15:11.600 --> 0:15:14.240 and about eight hours the second day, in about five 0:15:14.360 --> 0:15:16.320 or six hours the third day, and then the book 0:15:16.440 --> 0:15:21.880 was done. That's amazing. By twenty minutes after the book 0:15:22.040 --> 0:15:24.400 was done, I'd forgotten the names of all the characters. 0:15:24.440 --> 0:15:28.080 I mean, they didn't they didn't occupy space in my 0:15:28.200 --> 0:15:30.520 head for very much time. There was no way to 0:15:30.560 --> 0:15:32.880 remember that. It's do you remember the name of the book, 0:15:32.880 --> 0:15:34.320 because I'd like to read it. I don't know which 0:15:34.320 --> 0:15:35.960 one that was, Oh, because I. 0:15:35.920 --> 0:15:38.760 Feel like that would be a fascinating kind of almost 0:15:38.800 --> 0:15:42.440 like automatic writing, you know, the old spiritualist automatic writing 0:15:42.520 --> 0:15:44.160 thing that I mean, be kind of a. 0:15:44.120 --> 0:15:48.840 Real in them were written at not at that speed, 0:15:48.960 --> 0:15:53.560 but frequently in a week. I find that fascinating because 0:15:53.560 --> 0:15:57.440 they're especially the detective books in particular, are very complicated. 0:15:57.480 --> 0:16:05.920 The police were not detected right right. Hello, this is 0:16:05.960 --> 0:16:07.360 Craig Ferguson. 0:16:07.360 --> 0:16:08.760 And I want to let you know I have a 0:16:08.760 --> 0:16:11.800 brand new stand up comedy special out now on YouTube. 0:16:12.120 --> 0:16:15.520 It's called I'm So Happy, and I would be so 0:16:15.760 --> 0:16:18.800 happy if you checked it out. To watch the special, 0:16:18.920 --> 0:16:21.520 just go to my YouTube channel at the Craig Ferguson 0:16:21.560 --> 0:16:24.280 Show and is this right there? Just click it and 0:16:24.320 --> 0:16:25.920 play it and it's free. 0:16:26.320 --> 0:16:26.960 I can't look. 0:16:26.960 --> 0:16:28.280 I'm not going to come around your house and show 0:16:28.280 --> 0:16:29.600 you how to do it. If you can't do it, 0:16:29.640 --> 0:16:31.160 then you can't have it. But if you can figure 0:16:31.200 --> 0:16:40.800 it out, it's yours. You have a very emotive style, 0:16:40.840 --> 0:16:44.480 though even even Bernie first, I it was a mistaken 0:16:44.520 --> 0:16:48.160 identity for me with Bernie Roden bar at first because 0:16:48.160 --> 0:16:49.560 I thought there was no depth to that, and there's 0:16:49.560 --> 0:16:52.800 an extreme amount of depth in Bernie, and I feel 0:16:52.840 --> 0:16:59.760 like that You're very emotive as a writer. There's big sweeps, 0:16:59.760 --> 0:17:02.400 big human emotions in there. I remember in particular, Actually, 0:17:02.840 --> 0:17:05.080 what was the small town? The one you wrote after 0:17:05.160 --> 0:17:10.520 nine to eleven? Is an extremely almost like you were 0:17:10.520 --> 0:17:12.600 heartbroken when you wrote that book or something, or you 0:17:12.600 --> 0:17:13.320 were terrified. 0:17:13.359 --> 0:17:17.399 That kind of was. Yeah, that was That was a 0:17:19.720 --> 0:17:24.720 time that imprinted itself rather deeply on one's consciousness. Were 0:17:24.720 --> 0:17:27.080 you in New York, Georgiana eleven? Did you see it 0:17:27.119 --> 0:17:31.080 all happened? Yes? Actually we were in the line of sight, yeah, 0:17:31.119 --> 0:17:35.040 because you're downtown. Yeah, yeah, on the high floor we saw. 0:17:36.320 --> 0:17:40.879 And that book. Did that book happen in the aftermath 0:17:40.920 --> 0:17:42.879 of nine to eleven? Was it like in the space 0:17:42.920 --> 0:17:44.119 of weeks, months, days. 0:17:44.359 --> 0:17:46.639 It was a curious thing because it was a book 0:17:46.680 --> 0:17:51.040 that I had started before that, right, and I'd written 0:17:52.160 --> 0:17:58.359 a chunk of it, introducing several of the couple of 0:17:58.359 --> 0:18:01.080 the characters. I probably wrote about it and twenty pages 0:18:01.520 --> 0:18:05.840 of it before, and then after nine to eleven, I thought, well, 0:18:05.880 --> 0:18:11.360 I can throw this away because the world had changed 0:18:11.440 --> 0:18:15.120 in some fundamental ways, and certainly the city had changed. 0:18:16.640 --> 0:18:25.560 And a little time passed, and sometime I think it 0:18:25.800 --> 0:18:33.960 was in the spring of two thousand and two, so 0:18:34.359 --> 0:18:40.400 maybe six months after after I thought about it, and 0:18:40.480 --> 0:18:46.560 I thought, because what my object there was to write, 0:18:46.840 --> 0:18:53.280 for the first time for me, a big, multiple viewpoint 0:18:53.400 --> 0:18:56.200 now bill set in New York, with as much of 0:18:56.240 --> 0:19:04.920 New York as I could fit in it. I thought, gee, 0:19:05.440 --> 0:19:15.119 I could still do this. I would probably want to 0:19:15.160 --> 0:19:19.920 rewrite almost everything in the beginning portion, but there's there 0:19:19.920 --> 0:19:24.280 are scenes there that work, and there are characters who 0:19:24.600 --> 0:19:29.560 I find interesting. And I thought, I don't want to 0:19:29.600 --> 0:19:33.479 write a book in which nine to eleven happens. I 0:19:33.520 --> 0:19:42.000 want to write an aftermath book. And and did and 0:19:42.119 --> 0:19:50.800 it it was no to what extent the book succeeds 0:19:50.880 --> 0:19:51.400 or fails? 0:19:51.480 --> 0:19:55.119 I don't know. I rarely know with my own stuff. 0:19:55.160 --> 0:19:57.919 But what would that? What's the metric you use for that? 0:19:58.040 --> 0:20:00.000 How do you know if a book succeeds or failed? 0:20:00.640 --> 0:20:02.040 I don't. 0:20:02.560 --> 0:20:05.560 So once you write it, it's done. It is what 0:20:05.600 --> 0:20:07.720 it is, and there's no kind of judgment on it. 0:20:10.440 --> 0:20:17.120 There isn't really no I you know, I want them 0:20:17.160 --> 0:20:19.640 to do well. Sure, you want to do a real 0:20:20.000 --> 0:20:26.399 justice and may be well received. That's incidentally brings to 0:20:26.520 --> 0:20:33.919 mind a very interesting effective the retirement of not doing 0:20:33.920 --> 0:20:38.320 this anymore. Okay, And it's not just that I'm not 0:20:38.640 --> 0:20:45.680 writing anymore. But that I'm detached from the whole career 0:20:46.920 --> 0:20:50.440 in a way I wouldn't have anticipated. Is that product 0:20:50.440 --> 0:20:55.359 of aging? Do you think everything in my existence is 0:20:55.440 --> 0:20:59.639 so one way or another product of aging? But also 0:20:59.760 --> 0:21:08.560 it's no, it's part of it is that my life 0:21:08.640 --> 0:21:14.840 as a writer feels like a closed chapter. Right. And 0:21:15.680 --> 0:21:19.120 I'm very grateful that I got to spend those years 0:21:19.160 --> 0:21:22.720 doing that, like sixty five years, right, yeah, And I'm 0:21:22.880 --> 0:21:25.640 very grateful that I got to write all those books, 0:21:25.680 --> 0:21:33.760 the good, the bad, and the indifferent. But but I'm 0:21:34.560 --> 0:21:38.560 detached from them in an odd way. I don't too 0:21:38.640 --> 0:21:46.040 much care now what anybody thinks to them. I know 0:21:46.480 --> 0:21:56.719 they won't outlast my lifetime by any substantial margin. Nobody's due, really, 0:21:57.400 --> 0:22:02.000 and I don't know. And that's fine. The thing, the 0:22:02.119 --> 0:22:05.320 thing is, that's that's fine. It kind of I kind 0:22:05.320 --> 0:22:06.919 of feeled with with a book. 0:22:07.000 --> 0:22:09.880 I remember because the first time when I the first 0:22:09.880 --> 0:22:13.600 book I wrote, I remember you were very very. 0:22:13.640 --> 0:22:15.600 Kindly read an early draft of. 0:22:15.640 --> 0:22:21.280 It and and you let it was interesting because it's 0:22:21.280 --> 0:22:24.720 a it's the only novel I've written so far, and 0:22:25.880 --> 0:22:28.840 it's an unusual book. And you said, it's an unusual book, 0:22:28.880 --> 0:22:30.879 and you sent me a copy of a book that 0:22:31.080 --> 0:22:34.560 you had written years and years ago, which is also 0:22:34.600 --> 0:22:35.040 a very. 0:22:34.920 --> 0:22:39.960 Unusual book called The Long Walk, The Random Walk. Random Walk. 0:22:40.000 --> 0:22:44.480 That's right, and random Walk is such a weird, out 0:22:44.560 --> 0:22:48.159 of time, out of style book for you. 0:22:48.760 --> 0:22:50.920 I know what was going on with that? 0:22:51.000 --> 0:22:53.840 I mean, it's a very it's almost like magical realism 0:22:53.920 --> 0:22:55.120 or something going on in there. 0:22:55.600 --> 0:23:00.520 It was something, it was. It was a very strange experience. Yeah, 0:23:01.440 --> 0:23:06.119 Lynna and I had gone on our first really adventurous trip. 0:23:06.400 --> 0:23:10.800 We went uh on a trip that was under the 0:23:10.840 --> 0:23:15.760 auspices of the Institute for the Advancement or something of 0:23:15.800 --> 0:23:18.399 no Weddics Sciences, whatever the hell it was it was. 0:23:19.400 --> 0:23:25.000 It was it was an outfit founded by Edgar Mitchell 0:23:25.040 --> 0:23:28.119 when he came back from the moon. What isdics science? 0:23:28.320 --> 0:23:32.520 I don't know, Okay, I forget. It's fine. Somebody in 0:23:32.560 --> 0:23:36.560 the internet, right, I at one point could have supplied 0:23:37.600 --> 0:23:41.040 a definition of the word. But it's it's remarkable enough 0:23:41.080 --> 0:23:43.760 that I can recall the word any idea. What nouetics 0:23:43.800 --> 0:23:48.360 science is? Yeah, all right, okay. 0:23:48.119 --> 0:23:51.720 So disciplinary study that brings scientific tools and techniques together 0:23:52.200 --> 0:23:56.720 to basically solve the subjective inner knowing study of nature 0:23:56.720 --> 0:23:57.280 of reality. 0:23:58.040 --> 0:24:02.719 There we are, there we go, there we are. Anyway, 0:24:02.440 --> 0:24:06.840 they had this trip to Africa, right, that's where you go, 0:24:07.080 --> 0:24:11.240 with just about just about eight or ten of us 0:24:11.280 --> 0:24:15.080 on the whole trip, and we started. We spent a 0:24:15.080 --> 0:24:19.040 lot of time in Togo, and one thing we did 0:24:19.080 --> 0:24:27.560 in Togo was we met with a fellow named Akoite, 0:24:28.000 --> 0:24:33.440 who was I think he had a German father and 0:24:34.320 --> 0:24:38.600 Togule's mother, and he'd grown up there. He'd gone to 0:24:38.840 --> 0:24:43.600 school some in Germany and at the Sorbonne he qualified 0:24:43.640 --> 0:24:47.640 as a doctor. He decided that that wasn't really where 0:24:47.680 --> 0:24:57.919 he was, and he became this spiritual healer and conductor 0:24:57.960 --> 0:25:04.960 of Voodo type ceremonies in Lomay in Togo. And we 0:25:05.040 --> 0:25:08.560 met him and he was a powerful personality and he 0:25:09.280 --> 0:25:13.159 did this whole thing with Afterward, one of the things 0:25:13.280 --> 0:25:18.320 I'd sort of hoped for was that a new direction 0:25:18.440 --> 0:25:22.600 in my writing would come out of this. Okay, so 0:25:23.800 --> 0:25:26.800 it ended, and then we went to other places in Africa. 0:25:26.880 --> 0:25:29.720 We went to Cote d'avoir and we went to Mali. 0:25:29.840 --> 0:25:33.840 We had a good time, and we came home and 0:25:34.880 --> 0:25:40.720 I had booked a session a space at a writer's colony, 0:25:41.080 --> 0:25:43.880 the first time I'd ever done that, or retreat where 0:25:43.920 --> 0:25:46.480 you can go for two weeks or a month or 0:25:46.560 --> 0:25:49.479 whatever whatever it is, and what do you do. You like, 0:25:49.520 --> 0:25:51.640 you hang with other writers, or you hang with other 0:25:51.680 --> 0:25:55.280 writers to whatever extent you want. But what it mostly 0:25:55.440 --> 0:25:58.480 is is that they supply a room for you to 0:25:58.560 --> 0:26:02.000 work in, a room for you to and three meals 0:26:02.040 --> 0:26:07.560 a day, and you go there to work. So I've 0:26:07.800 --> 0:26:11.719 met some people I've become very fond of at Reuter's colonies, 0:26:12.240 --> 0:26:16.159 but that was never the point. The point always is 0:26:16.240 --> 0:26:19.120 to go there to work. And I had the spacebook, 0:26:19.200 --> 0:26:21.560 and I thought, I have to go there. It's my 0:26:21.680 --> 0:26:24.600 first time at a colony. What the hell am I 0:26:24.640 --> 0:26:29.119 going to write? And I thought, well, there was a 0:26:30.840 --> 0:26:34.760 Burglar book I sort of had in mind. Had you 0:26:34.800 --> 0:26:38.040 started the Bernie series. Oh yeah, the Bernie series had 0:26:38.080 --> 0:26:44.919 gone on for a while. This would have been seventy seven. Okay, no, 0:26:45.080 --> 0:26:47.920 pardon me, this would have been eighty seven. Okay, yeah. 0:26:48.720 --> 0:26:55.120 And I so I thought it would be nice if 0:26:55.160 --> 0:26:58.600 there was something else that I could write that I 0:26:58.680 --> 0:27:03.920 had more firmly mind. And I was sitting one day, 0:27:03.960 --> 0:27:07.600 we were living in Florida at the time, and I 0:27:07.800 --> 0:27:17.200 suddenly had this vision of people walking through the mountains. 0:27:17.280 --> 0:27:26.320 Of course whatever, and bits and pieces started coming to 0:27:26.359 --> 0:27:33.080 me over the next several days, and I thought, well, 0:27:34.320 --> 0:27:37.600 you know, I don't have a book here, because this 0:27:37.680 --> 0:27:41.399 is a complicated book, but maybe I've got enough of 0:27:41.480 --> 0:27:45.040