I'm assuming that most of you know that WHEN THE SACRED
GINMILL CLOSES was an expanded version of the Scudder short
story, "By the Dawn's Early Light."
The short story has a kind of interesting background. Block
had agreed to write a Scudder story for Bob Randisi's first
PWA anthology, THE EYES HAVE IT. There was some passage of
time, however, between the agreement Block had made with
Randisis, and the anthology's coming to fruition. In the
interim, Block had written EIGHT MILLION WAYS TO DIE, which,
it seemed at the time, brought the series to its logical
conclusion. After all, once Scudder had taken the necessary
steps to conquer his alcoholism, what else was there to write
about.
Block's solution was to make the story what a
"continuity implant," setting it before the events of EIGHT
MILLION, and vaguely within the period covered by the first
four novels in the series. He simply started the story with
the words, "All this happened a long time ago," and went from
there.
He was so pleased with the final result, that he decided to
try for a big payoff market, and sent it to PLAYBOY, which
bought it and published it just weeks before its book
appearance in the EYES anthology.
It went on the win the Edgar (Block's first of four), the
Shamus (his second), and went on to become perhaps his most
reprinted story, later appearing in THE YEARS BEST MYSTERY
AND SUSPENSE STORIES - 1985, THE NEW EDGAR WINNERS, THE EYES
STILL HAVE IT, and THE BEST AMERICAN MYSTERY STORIES OF THE
CENTURY.
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