FORGOTTEN BOOK: CARLA

 Carla by "Sheldon Lord" (Lawrence Block) (1958)

I'm more than a bit OSD in my reading.  When I find an author I like I want to read everything that author wrote, a tendency that sometimes takes me down strange paths.  One of my favorite authors is Lawrence Block.  Block may be best known for his novels about un licensed private investigator Matt Scudder; his other popular series characters include bookstore owner and thief Bernie Rhodenbarr, adventurer and supporter of lost causes Evan Tanner, professional hitman Keller, Archie Goodwin clone Chip Harrison, and defense lawyer Martin Ehrengraf.  Block has been named a MWA Grand Master, a Lifetime Achievement Ward from the Private Eye Writers of America, and a Gumshoe Lifetime Achievement Award.  His work has won four Anthony Awards, eleven Edgar Awards, and eleven Shamus Awards.  His official bibliography listed 209 books through 2020; at six six additional books have been entered since then.  Now in his mid-eighties, Block has been writing professionally for 66 years -- his first paid publication appeared in 1958, followed that same year by his first published novel, 
Carla.

Block's first written novel was Strange Are the Ways of Love, published under the pseudonym "Lesley Evans."  Due to the vagaries of the publishing world, this became his third published book.  Carla, his first published novel, came about when his agent asked him if he could write a sex novel; a new paperback house -- Midwood Books -- was looking for sex novels to add to their line.  Block was still in college and may have actually been a teenager (he was born in 1938).  Of course Block could write a sex novel.  Block would write anything a publisher wanted.

Block lucked out with Carla.  While not totally unreadable, the book was severely flawed.  Block had included a scene where Carla had made love to a gas jockey in the grease pit of a gasoline station.  Block had no idea what a grease pit was, nor what it looked like, but it sounded cool when he wrote the scene.  His publisher at Midwood enthused over the scene; for some reason, making love in a grease pit sounded incredibly sexy to him.  Block became one of the man's favorite writer and Midwood would go to publish ten more sex novels by Block.

A word about the sex novels of the 50s and 60s.  They had to be titillating but not explicit.  No details please.  The actual action was merely described as, Then he took her" and then there might be a reference to riding the crest of a wave, or the words "higher and higher,' but that was it.  And female breast are mounds of flesh.  Ho-hum.  But it worked, and hundreds of thousands of these paperback novels were sold as "one-handed reading."  The market for these books was thirsty and the quality was usually low, but it was an entry level into publishing and a good place for writers to learn their fictional trade.  Among the many later very successful-successful writers who plied in these trenches, beside Block, were Donald E. Westlake, John Jakes, Evan Hunter, Bill Pronzini, Avram Davidson, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Marijane Meaker, Robert Silverberg, and Joe R. Lansdale.

As I mentioned, Carla is a flawed book, a freshman effort.  I doubt if Block did more than perfunctory revisions and editing; the book reads as if he just began typing and stopped when his page count was reached.  The first chapter suffers from an excess of adverbs, something that soon vanished once we reach the second chapter.  One character, a randy negress, is described as having "red nipples" -- which, I think was the only time Block had used the word (I haven't gone back to check because I did not really want to reread any passages).  That character, BTW, had nothing to with the plot of the book, except to provide three varied sexual scenes that read like they belonged in another book.

The story centers around Carla, a beautiful young woman with desires, married to an older, impotent, rich man.  Carla grew up poor and now appreciates the money her husband has; it provides her with an MG, and clothes, and a maid, and some status.  What it does not provide her with is physical love.  Please understand that Carla does love her husband in a kind of platonic way and she does not want to do anything that would hurt him, or (dread!) his career.  So, trying not to hurt him, she begins an affair with a supposed close friend of her husband.  She also does the spur of the moment grease pit canoodling scene that so aroused Block's editor.  Soon, though, she finds another man -- a poor man (horrors!) and falls for him.  What to do?  Is Carla going to be able to give up her pampered life style for a life of poverty?  Do we care?

Well, no, we don't.  Because Carla, as well as every other other character in the book is shallow and one-dimensional; all are extremely unpleasant.  This is a book in which the central character whines a lot, and where nothing is remotely believable.  TRIGGER WARNING:  This is also a book where violent rape is equated with love.

So this is a "I read it so you don't have to" book.  Block's writing and plotting got much better as he continued to churn out sex novels early in his career.  He began to display a sensitivity to his subject and to exhibit depth in his characters.  Many of these early novels are very readable, but this one, his first published, does not fall into that category.