RONALD RABBIT IS A DIRTY OLD MAN (Bernard Geis 1971) has to
be one of Lawrence Block's oddest novels. Laurence Clarke is
having a run of bad luck. His wife has left him for his best
friend and, together with every dollar in their joint bank
account, the two of them are now in Mexico. He's also been
fired from his job as editor of a children's magazine "Ronald
Rabbit's Magazine for Boys and Girls." The fact that the
magazine had folded six months before and only an
administrative oversight kept him on salary did not lessen
his distress.
The novel is told in a series of letters to his wife, his
best friend, his ex-wife (expecting her alimony check), his
ex-boss, and various others. It is screamingly funny in a way
that begins with a few chuckles and then as Block's design
becomes evident becomes laugh out loud funny.
To say much more would be to spoil the fun and would be
difficult given the fact that much of the humor is wrapped in
graphic sexual descriptions. Along the way, our hero is
befriended by a group of 16-year-old girls who are students
of a Catholic school for girls. Initially, this seems like a
wish-fulfillment fantasy (as his ex- wife charged after he
sent her and her boyfriend graphic descriptions) but by the
end of the novel that is less certain.
The way the various plot threads come together (ahm)during
the course of the novel is a thing of beauty.
The one novel to compare to RONALD RABBIT is Donald
Westlake's ADIOS, SCHEHERAZADE (Simon and Schuster 1970)which
is told in the form of ruminations and false starts of a porn
writer suffering from writer's block. The way the financial
and marital concerns manifest themselves in his attempts to
write yet another porn novel is very, very funny. I suspect
that Block may have written RONALD RABBIT in an attempt to
top Westlake. Both of them were writing (or had written) porn
novels to pay the bills in a process Westlake describes in
some detail. If I had any doubt of this, Block's Clarke signs
one of his letters "Adios Mo***r F**ker," which was the
original form of "Adios, Scheherazade" in Westlake's
novel.
As to which is the best, I would say Westlake's frame is by
far the most clever but that laugh for laugh, Block's novel
was the funniest.
One final note, the Block novel has a photo of Block posed
with two young girls reading them a copy of his novel AFTER
THE FIRST DEATH. The bio on the cover flap says that "...any
resemblance between Lawrence Block, author, and Laurence
Clarke, hero of RONALD RABBIT IS A DIRTY OLD MAN is
entirely."
One post-final note, the publishing company in the book is
Whitestone Publications, Inc. For a couple of years in the
1960s, Lawrence Block was employed by Whitman Publishing
Company of Racine, Wisconsin which we recently discussed did
comics, movie and television tie-in books for children.
Richard Moore
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