A rocus randy story, told thru letters, of a mans escape into ..... something new. Good bawdy fun. ( )

This is a delightfully filthy romp. I need to read more romps ( )

This is a well written and entertaining book. The style of using letters to tell the story really works well. There is quite a bit of graphic sex and language, but it is presented in such a literary fashion that the shock value is diminished. ( )

Published 2000.


“’Hookers?’
‘Well, they get twenty, so you couldn’t call them virgins. But nice girls. One of them used to be a stewardess.’
‘What did the other one used to be?’
‘A virgin, I guess. I used to a be a virgin, come to think of it. You game, Larry?’
I said I couldn’t afford it.
[..]
‘I’ll tell you, I get very awkward going there alone. Because there’s the two of them.’
‘So?’
‘So I hate to choose between them. It’s like rejecting one of them and telling the other ‘You’re a nice kid but I’d rather fuck your roommate.’ So she’s rejected, and she sits in the other room watching the fucking television set, and the whole things puts me off stride.’
‘You’re putting me on,’
‘I just don’t like to reject people.’”

In “Ronald Rabbit is a Dirty Old Man” by Lawrence Block

Since having finished reading the book, I’ve been thinking on the best way to write about it without being crass.

The following is the best I could come up with. Read it at your own peril on my blog. ( )

This is a good read for fans of "50 Shades of Grey." If you thought that book was groundbreaking, Block's novel came out in 1971. Do the math there. It's a huge departure from the crime novels of Block's I've read recently like "The Girl with the Long Green Heart," "Grifter's Game," and "Hit Man."

The story takes place through a series of letters, most written by one Laurence Clarke. On the same day Laurence's wife leaves him for his best friend, his bosses at his publisher finally figure out he's been "stowing away" in their company for the better part of a year, doing nothing but reading in his office all that time. It's like in "Office Space" where he was supposed to be fired but no one got around to telling him, so he just kept coming in and getting paid.

These devastating events turn out to be Laurence's liberation. While on a bender he meets a group of teenage girls who've snuck out of their Catholic school. What they end up doing would break a number of laws. Eventually he finds a new woman and woos her with some kinky sex. His greatest triumphs are at the end when he manages to play matchmaker for his ex-wives and best friend and in the process solve several dilemmas at once.

If you're prudish or squeamish it's easy to hate this novel. It's pretty graphic and descriptive about things like anal and oral sex. At the same time, Laurence is so delightfully cunning and "evil" that I enjoyed rooting for the "bad guy." And hey, if your sex life is lacking, there might be some good tips in there.

That is all. ( )