Enough of Sorrow

The Jill Emerson Novels, #3

Here's what someone wrote as the book description for an earlier edition of ENOUGH OF SORROW:

"From master storyteller Lawrence Block comes one girl's journey toward self-discovery and sexual freedom....Karen Winslow is starting over. But she's not sure how to move forward when her deepest secret haunts her and keeps her from enjoying her carefree youth. She's a sweet but troubled young thing, and not until she meets Rae, a confident young lesbian, does she realize what she's been missing. Meanwhile, she's also intrigued by a man and can't help but wonder if a normal life will put an end her sorrows for good."

ENOUGH OF SORROW, I could add, is the third of mynovels as Jill Emerson, who seems to me to be rather more than a pen name. An aspect of self, perhaps. A distinct persona, if you will. My first novel, SHADOWS, originally bore a different pen name, but it's very much of a piece with Jill's work, and I don't think it's coincidental that I chose that theme and that persona for the first book I ever wrote, any more than I deem it coincidence that, when I split with my agent and had no place to sell my work, my first step toward recovery was an over-the-transom submission of WARM AND WILLING—another lesbian novel.

I've written about that new beginning in the book description for WARM AND WILLING. After I turned it in, the editor at Midwood made it clear he'd like to publish more of Jill's work. (As far as he ever knew, the author was indeed a woman named Jill Emerson. I saw no reason to disabuse him of the notion, and in fact the game was half the fun.) And, thank God, it was a more innocent age, or at least a less cumbersome one. He sent me checks payable to Jill Emerson and I endorsed them in that name and cashed them through my bank account. It wouldn't be that simple nowadays.

I don't know what I'd called WARM AND WILLING, but the title I slapped on the second book was ENOUGH OF SORROW, from the poem by Mary Carolyn Davies:

I Sing of sorrow
I sing of weeping
I have no sorrow

I only borrow
From some tomorrow
Where it lies sleeping

Enough of sorrow
To sing of weeping.

A fine poet, Mary Carolyn Davies. Bernie Rhodenbarr's reading one of her verses in one of the books—I disremember which book, but the verse was "Smith, of the Third Oregon, Dies."

I guess they liked Jill at Midwood. Their paperback sports an award sticker on the cover, proclaiming it the winer of some nonexistent contest. And, mirabile dictu, that didn't feel the need to change my title. I wonder why Jill never wrote more for them?

Ah well. Let's be grateful for what we have. And note that this ebook edition of ENOUGH OF SORROW includes as a bonus the opening chapter of Jill's fourth novel, THIRTY.