Episode Details

The SFFaudio Podcast #795 – Jesse and Scott Danielson talk about Such Men Are Dangerous by Lawrence Block

Talked about on today’s show:
Reading, Short And Deep, 1969 novel, Paul Kavanaugh, only one other Lawrence Block, a blowjob under a table, a pretty late one, the finest gift was Donald Westlake, a fine fine gift, so good, in that same territory, a little uncomfortable, a psychopath?, dangerous, killed 19 innocent people, a similar quality, they’re paperback writers, tweeted about this book, Lawrence Block doing Richard Stark, a darker Westlake, Stephen King’s darker half, Richard Bachman, the main character’s name is Paul Kavanaugh, kills a bunch of people, betrays the United States, sets off nukes, in the drugstore getting your cigs and malt, this is a true story, at what point in the book, a whole lot, pre-Watergate, very Watergatey, Vietnam, in Cambodia for 10 years, little brown men chasing after him, a super-competent crazy man, he has no idea where he wants to be, encounters with women, the colonel’s wife, she’d kill herself on the way home, psychotic?, we keep learning that, things seem to be going more smoothly now, nope, this is our man, Small Town, 2003, older guy getting into a relationship with a woman, a meditation on New York, much more like a mainstream book, a weird exception, Tom Wolfe or Mario Puzo, The Man In Full, Lawrence Block short stories, Scott edits that, recurring characters, a bunch of series, he resists it for quite a while, editors were demanding series, twins in ability, they were friends, sharing keyboards, co-authored stuff, publishers would be asking, exclusivity, The Hunter, give me three of these a year, two more, a difference, the second one, The Evil That Men Do?, travelling around the USA, Not Comin’ Home To You, free and white and 22, killing spree, two dudes, Natural Born Killers, Woody Harrelson, real life dad was a serial killer, may have been involved in the murder of JFK as well, a researching rabbit hole, In Cold Blood, Truman Capote, the Clutter family, the short lived writing career of Paul Kavanaugh, Maissa Bessada, the first Burglar book, Burglars Can’t Be Choosers, 1977, it’s a cozy, a hardboiled alcoholic detective living in New York, like Agatha Christie, much more Poirot, models on the Raffles books, brother in law to Arthur Conan Doyle, explicitly modeled on Sherlock Holmes, a burglar and his gay lover, dress up in women’s clothes, country jewel thieving, identical to Holmes and Watson, the lover tells the story, the enigmatic one, homosocial, no sex on screen, a lesbian sidekick, a dog groomer, a Lawrence Block hobby book, The Burglar Who Thought He Was Bogart, The Burglar Who Met Fredric Brown, The Burglar Who Traded Ted Williams, if you can only handle the soft, Matthew Scudder novels, trying to get dry, an older man, aging with Block, The Autobiography Of Matthew Scudder, the writing on this, effortless, listening to it, not a chance on this one, very smooth, can always listen to a Westlake, velvet prose, easily page turning, kept being surprised, goes to his island, makes his rules, back and forth to get his eggs, that came out of nowhere, we’re living in the shire and Gandalf shows up and he’s got a handgrenade, he says the thing I was thinking, you are me and I am you, what’s the difference between Paul and George?, not all there either, his Minnesota exams, go any places, we’re in Paul Kavanaugh’s head, his face or his back, all the decisions he’s not going to make, Lawrence Block doesn’t have a complete skill set but he hides it so well, M-14, Thompson, the new guns in Vietnam, sketch-it lightly, it isn’t a gun book