I suggested Larry Block's older fiction about a long slow walk. He really does walk, though maybe not quite a Random Walk. From tonight's LB newsletter:
I've mentioned a just-completed book, but haven't told you about it---and, noodges that some of you are, you've expressed the hope that it might turn out to be a Matthew Scudder book, or a Bernie Rhodenbarr book, or a sequel to War and Peace. It's none of those things. It's not even a work of fiction---except to whatever extent my memory is an unwitting liar.
Because, you see, it's calling itself STEP BY STEP: A Pedestrian Memoir, and it sets out to cover a year in the life of an aging and none-too-gifted racewalker. Writing it, I found myself inclined to examine walking in all the forms it's taken in my life, from when I first made the transition from infant to toddler. I'd never expected to write about my childhood, but it's in here, and so's the long walk Lynne and I took across Spain to Santiago de Compostela, and, well, lots of stuff. I wondered throughout whether anybody would be interested in what I was writing. I was bothered by the fact that the damned thing was all about me me me---but it is, after all, a memoir, so what did I expect? And I was concerned that readers with no great interest in racewalking (and that would take in most of you, wouldn't it?) would find the book slow going. Those who've read it so far insist that's not that case, (Of course maybe they're just trying to keep from hurting my feelings. Maybe. . .oh, never mind.)
I don't know exactly when STEP BY STEP will be published, or if that's the title we'll stick with. I expect it'll come out sometime in 2009, by which time I'll very likely have told you still more about it.
www.lawrenceblock.com
I've mentioned a just-completed book, but haven't told you about it---and, noodges that some of you are, you've expressed the hope that it might turn out to be a Matthew Scudder book, or a Bernie Rhodenbarr book, or a sequel to War and Peace. It's none of those things. It's not even a work of fiction---except to whatever extent my memory is an unwitting liar.
Because, you see, it's calling itself STEP BY STEP: A Pedestrian Memoir, and it sets out to cover a year in the life of an aging and none-too-gifted racewalker. Writing it, I found myself inclined to examine walking in all the forms it's taken in my life, from when I first made the transition from infant to toddler. I'd never expected to write about my childhood, but it's in here, and so's the long walk Lynne and I took across Spain to Santiago de Compostela, and, well, lots of stuff. I wondered throughout whether anybody would be interested in what I was writing. I was bothered by the fact that the damned thing was all about me me me---but it is, after all, a memoir, so what did I expect? And I was concerned that readers with no great interest in racewalking (and that would take in most of you, wouldn't it?) would find the book slow going. Those who've read it so far insist that's not that case, (Of course maybe they're just trying to keep from hurting my feelings. Maybe. . .oh, never mind.)
I don't know exactly when STEP BY STEP will be published, or if that's the title we'll stick with. I expect it'll come out sometime in 2009, by which time I'll very likely have told you still more about it.
www.lawrenceblock.com
