Sorry for any confusion, guys. As I have made clear in all the various
interviews I've given about the book (and Lawrence Block has made clear
in all the interviews he's given and pieces he's written on the
subject), Donald Westlake wrote MEMORY in the early 1960s. He gave it
to his agent, but the agent was unable to sell it, possibly because it
was twice the length of Don's other books at the time, possibly because
it was a dark and sensitive philosophical/literary/mainstream novel
rather than a punchy commercial crime novel, possibly because that agent
just didn't have contacts among editors outside the hardcore genre
publishers. Whatever the reason, he told Don he couldn't sell it, so
Don put it away in a drawer, and despite Larry's urging Don to publish
the book at various times over the next 40 years, Don never did.
It's the last unpublished Westlake novel I was aware of, which is why
"final unpublished novel" seemed like a reasonable description. But no,
it wasn't written after all his other novels. (And it may not even be
the last one that exists -- Max Allan Collins has since told me about
another manuscript he saw some years ago that he's confident never got
published. So there may eventually be one more.)
--Charles
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