The Autobiography of Matthew Scudder - Lawrence Block

Is the autobiography of a fictional character still fiction? I think that’s what you’d have to call it. Not that it really matters in this case. Whatever else it is, THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MATTHEW SCUDDER is a very good book.

Those of you who follow Lawrence Block’s career know that he’s been in a contemplative mood the past few years, publishing several books that serve as a look back and summing up not only of his life as a professional writer but also the lives of some of the characters he’s created. A quote from early in this book addresses that: "One reaches an age when the past is as interesting as the present, and a bit less difficult to make sense of."

This tendency can be seen in his most recent novel, THE BURGLAR WHO MET FREDRIC BROWN and in the Matt Scudder collection THE NIGHT AND THE MUSIC and the Scudder novella A TIME TO SCATTER STONES. Block brings this trend to its logical conclusion by letting Scudder tell the story of his life up to the point where Block began chronicling his cases with THE SINS OF THE FATHER. As he has Scudder say in the book, "And what the hell am I writing now? I suppose it's the part between the books, the part you'd skip."

Yes, this concept is pretty meta, as they say. But it works. Since Scudder is the narrator of all the previous novels and stories about him, the voice is the same. Scudder the character takes a few gentle shots at Block the author for changing things in the fiction, such as his birthday. And he fills in the background on events that happened in some of the novels. But for the most part, this is a straightforward telling of Matt Scudder’s life and how he got to the point where the novels take up the story. It’s a tale that is, in many ways, compelling in its ordinariness. Scudder is no superhero, no eccentric genius of a detective, just a fairly ordinary guy with instincts that made him a good cop and unlicensed private detective, a guy with a lot of admirable qualities and a few deep flaws that threaten those better qualities but never quite overwhelm them. You just can’t help liking him, which of course is one of the appeals of the long-running series about him.

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MATTHEW SCUDDER isn’t a mystery and I’m not sure you can even call it a novel. But it’s a very well-written book that kept me turning the pages and thoroughly entertained me. It’ll be out in June, and you can pre-order the e-book already. I’m not sure what the plans are for print editions, but I know there’ll be some. This is one of the best books I’ve read so far this year, and I give it a very high recommendation.