Despite a few blisters, Block’s racewalk journey is engaging
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North Buffalo, has continued his racewalking avocation into his 70s.
05/31/09 07:06 AM
Despite a few blisters, Block’s racewalk journey is engaging
By Margaret Sullivan
NEWS BOOK REVIEWER
When you enjoy an author’s writing style and point of view—his
voice—you’ll follow him down many an unexpected path.
That’s why the idea of reading Lawrence Block’s memoir about his
adventures in the truly odd sport of racewalking seemed like such a
good idea. After all, though I don’t like gore, I’ve found myself
reading many a blood-soaked crime novel, just because of Block’s
wised-up, funny and engaging approach.
As it turns out, that wasn’t entirely the case here.
Yes, the “Buffalo” parts of his new book are great fun. Block is a
native of North Buffalo and a 1959 graduate of Bennett High School.
He’s also one of America’s best-selling mystery writers — best known
for his Manhattan-based series about the recovering alcoholic
investigator Matthew Scudder and the gentleman burglar Bernie
Rhodenbarr.
At nearly 71, he has written more than 50 novels. (It must be
something in our lake water; Joyce Carol Oates, another local native
and author, is also prolific, almost notoriously so.) Block was named
a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America in 1993.
The early signs in “Step By Step” are promising. Block brings his
usual appealing writer’s voice to the initial chapters.
His reminiscences of growing up on Parkside, and then Starin Avenue,
and walking all around the city are entertaining, especially for those
of us who know the territory.
Because he had failed utterly at learning to ride a bike at the usual
grade-school age, Block began to walk long distances around the city.
Soon enough, his classmates from PS 66 (at Parkside and North Drive)
got wind of it, “and the next thing I knew we had a hiking club with
six or eight members.”
Come Saturday, we met at the school and set out . . . I remember that
there were enough of us so that soda jerks and gas-pump jockeys
regarded us less as an eccentric diversion and more as a pack of
vermin. We wound up walking to Phil Dorfman’s drugstore at East Ferry
and Wohlers . . . where everybody got a soda or a milkshake.
His tales of Camp Lakeland, Bennett High and his days at Antioch
College are also reasonably amusing, and even his early tales of
becoming a runner and then, because of injury, a racewalker, sustain a
reader’s interest with ease.
Block skillfully explains the attractions of training for a race —
whether running or walking — and the addictive nature of the sport
that has so many avid followers.
And still later, chapters on Block’s walking Spain’s Camino de
Santiago with his wife, following the historic route of Christian
pilgrims, are quirkily captivating. (Quirkiness, by the way, is not at
all surprising for a guy who decided, at one point in midlife, to seek
out every town in America with Buffalo in its name, just for the fun
of the journey.)
But, later still, when he devolves into citing chapter and verse of
every 5K, 10K, marathon, ultra and 24-hour race he’s entered, not
stinting on such details as his race times and how many blisters he
had on each foot . . . well, even a well-loved writer’s voice isn’t
enough to make most of us give a darn.
There’s no denying that the last quarter of “Step By Step” has the
unmistakeable feeling of an author limping to an all-too-elusive
finish line.
But given its strong start, its local references and its certain
appeal to those who walk and run competitively, Block’s memoir is a
worthy addition to his impressive list of accomplishments.
Margaret Sullivan is the editor of The News.