Wed 8 Sep 2021
An Archived Review by Doug Greene: LAWRENCE BLOCK – Sometimes They Bite.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[5] Comments
LAWRENCE BLOCK – Sometimes They Bite. Arbor House, hardcover, 1983. Paperback editions include Jove, 1984. Avon, 1992.
I was impressed with Lawrence Block’s Eight Millions Ways to Die. His detective, Matthew Scudder, is a fully-realized and invariably interesting character, and the suspects are sharply delineated. There are, however, some weaknesses in the book: Block’s comments about modern life have all the subtlety of a steamroller, and he doesn’t bother about fair play in clueing. But on the whole, the positive aspects of Eight Millions Ways led me to expect great things of Block’s first short-story collection, Sometimes They Bite.
My reaction was, as they say, mixed. The volume has one fine Matt Scudder tale, one good story about thief Bernie Rhodenbarr, and two cases of that exceedingly criminal lawyer, Martin Ehrengraff.
The other stories illustrate Block’s light touch — praised by many critics but which seems to me to trivialize tragedy. Block believes that his audience will be vastly amused whenever an attractive protagonist [sic]. This is not what Anthony Boucher meant when he said, “death and laughter are old friends.” Investigating a murder can be amusing; watching your friends in pain is not.
With the exceptions of the Scudder, Ehrengraff and Rhodenbarr tales, Sometimes They Bite has no detection, no suspense and little mystery. Each story, it’s true, has a twist, and with a little effort some of them might have become mystery or detective stories.
September 8th, 2021 at 8:12 pm
I often enjoy Block, and I admire him as a writer, but I go long periods when I don’t read him, then I will get lured in for a while until he hits a note that just doesn’t feel right.
I was a big Scudder fan, then suddenly I wasn’t, and I admit it was probably me.
I have to be in the right mood I guess.
September 9th, 2021 at 9:35 am
I enjoyed the Scudder books when they first came out, then all of a sudden they became darker than I was comfortable with. They’re still Block’s finest books, in my opinion.
September 9th, 2021 at 3:12 pm
I just read Block’s A Writer Prepares, his memoir which was half written around 1994 and the rest last year. Interesting how talented he is/was, and how much money he made writing the “adult” books for Midway/Monarch, etc in the early 1960’s. Curious that he didn’t write his first regular novel until close to 1967, after publishing almost 100 books under other names by then.
The 1994 part was great, gave you a great sense of what it was like to be a writer breaking through, the 2020 part seemed to ramble around without much point. The difference in writing when you are 55 or 80 I guess.
September 9th, 2021 at 3:46 pm
It’s good to see some much mileage he’s getting out of those early “adult” books. I bet he wasn’t planning on using those for retirement money back then.
September 9th, 2021 at 7:07 pm
There was a time he and Westlake and Silverberg barely admitted writing those books much less expectd income from them again.