Ronald Rabbit is a Dirty Old Man by Lawrence BlockIn the span of one day, Laurence Clarke is fired from his job as a magazine editor of Ronald Rabbit's Stories for Boys and Girls, has his wife run off with his best friend, and has his ex-wife jack up her alimony. What will he do? Write some letters...
This is the fourth book in my Kindle Unlimited Experiment. For the 30 day trial, I'm only reading books that are part of the program and keeping track what the total cost of the books would have been.
I've been aware of Ronald Rabbit for years after seeing Block mention it a few times in Telling Lies for Fun and Profit. When it showed up on Kindle Unlimited, I was all over it.
Ronald Rabbit is a Dirty Old Man is told in the form of letters written by or written to Laurence Clarke, a man beset by troubles on all sides, many of which were of his own making. He responds to his troubles by writing letters and getting into sexual mischief with a carload of teenage girls, a repressed secretary at his former employers, and his acidhead mistress.
Laurence Clarke is a literary ancestor of Seinfeld's George Costanza in some ways. The Ronald Rabbit magazine was cancelled six months before the story begins and he managed to skate by collection a check by making sure he wasn't noticed. He's also a liar and quite bawdy. His antics had me stifling my laughter quite a few times.
The book is also quite dirty, not surprising since Block used to churn out porno books around this same time. In the afterword, he said he cranked out the book in four days. Funny considering some writers can't put out a book in four years. Anyway, Clarke has some sexual adventures in this book, including threesomes with teenage girls and engaging in surprise sodomy with the repressed secretary I mentioned earlier.
Ronald Rabbit is a bit of dirty good fun and an interesting look into the past of my favorite living crime writer. Three out of five stars.
Current Kindle Unlimited Savings Total: $15.74.
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