Somewhere around 1969 I began to grow dissatisfied with the underlying principle of most novels---that a disembodied voice in the first or third person was telling us a story. I liked the idea of novels passing themselves off as documents, and drew inspiration from Mark Harris's WAKE UP, STUPID, and Sue Kaufman's DIARY OF A MAD HOUSEWIFE, the first ostensibly a collection of letters, the second, duh, a diary. (One could, of course, go back further, to the very beginnings of the English novel in the works of Daniel Defoe and Samuel Richardson.)
I also found myself interested in writing with greater candor about sexual topics. I had knocked out dozens of soft-core paperbacks, and wanted to try anew with greater freedom and more realism.
I wrote three paperback original novels for Berkley under the pen name Jill Emerson, two of them in diary form, the third a presumed collaborative novel written in concert by the three viewpoint characters. These were fun to do and worked out well, and they led to RONALD RABBIT IS A DIRTY OLD MAN. Some of the circumstances of the book's emergence are covered in an introduction to a special 1995 limited edition, which I've included at here the end of the text. I wrote the book thinking it would be another pseudonymous paperback, and that no doubt gave me the freedom to write it as I did; after it was written, the friends who read it liked it so much that I was persuaded to publish it as a hardcover novel, and under my own name.
I sent an early copy to Isaac Asimov, who wrote me that it was either the funniest dirty book or the dirtiest funny book ever written. I told him that would be a wonderful blurb, and he said "over my dead body," or words to that effect. Well, Isaac's been gone over fifteen years now, so I feel free to use it. Thanks, Isaac!
Enjoy!
---Lawrence Block
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
I also found myself interested in writing with greater candor about sexual topics. I had knocked out dozens of soft-core paperbacks, and wanted to try anew with greater freedom and more realism.
I wrote three paperback original novels for Berkley under the pen name Jill Emerson, two of them in diary form, the third a presumed collaborative novel written in concert by the three viewpoint characters. These were fun to do and worked out well, and they led to RONALD RABBIT IS A DIRTY OLD MAN. Some of the circumstances of the book's emergence are covered in an introduction to a special 1995 limited edition, which I've included at here the end of the text. I wrote the book thinking it would be another pseudonymous paperback, and that no doubt gave me the freedom to write it as I did; after it was written, the friends who read it liked it so much that I was persuaded to publish it as a hardcover novel, and under my own name.
I sent an early copy to Isaac Asimov, who wrote me that it was either the funniest dirty book or the dirtiest funny book ever written. I told him that would be a wonderful blurb, and he said "over my dead body," or words to that effect. Well, Isaac's been gone over fifteen years now, so I feel free to use it. Thanks, Isaac!
Enjoy!
---Lawrence Block
