Yeah, I’ll bet. “The Burglar Who Met Fredric Brown” is out, and the reviewers can’t contain their enthusiasm, and the book’s flying off the virtual shelves, and blah blah blah. And that’s your headline? Some surprising news indeed. The real surprise is you didn’t follow it with an exclamation point.

My wife talked me out of it.

And you actually took her advice? I guess that’s the surprise.

Well, it surprised her. But there’s something else. I’ve written a book.

That’s a surprise? It’s a feat you’ve accomplished  over 200 times. And I already mentioned the book. Bernie Rhodenbarr’s back, in a book that I’ll grant you has some surprising twists and turns, and it’s getting a lot of attention and making a lot of readers very happy, but how does that add up to a surprise? You’ve been hollering about the book since you finished it back in the spring, and it’s out, and I’d congratulate you if the very prospect didn’t stimulate my gag reflex, but—

I finished work on The Burglar Who Met Fredric Brown on April 30.

Isn’t that what I just said? 

And in June I sat down at my desk and started work on a brand-new book, one I hadn’t even imagined before. And, two days before the October 18 release of The Burglar Who Met Fredric Brown, I finished it.

You’ve got to be #@%$&!! kidding. But you’re not, are you? You’re #@%$&!! serious.

And you’re #@%$&!! surprised.

Astonished, frankly. Have you looked in the mirror lately? Or at a calendar? You’re 84 years old. What gives you the right to turn out two books in a single year?

I believe it’s enshrined in the Constitution.

Yours or the nation’s? Never mind. Let me get clear on this. It’s a completely new book?

It is.

And it’s a novel?

That’s hard to say.

It’s hard to say? Evidently, since you’re having trouble saying it. But how can it be hard to say? Randall Jarrell told us that a novel is a book-length work of fiction that has something wrong with it.

Well, my book runs 65,000 words, so it’s definitely book-length. And there’sno question it’s got something wrong with it.

And it’s fiction?

Let’s say it’s a work of the imagination. I think it may clear things up a little if I tell you the title.

I’m listening.

“The Autobiography of Matthew Scudder.”

Crikey. The Autobiography—

—of Matthew Scudder. Briefly, here’s what happened. A publisher friend asked me to write a 4000-word profile of Scudder, and I found I flat-out hated the idea of writing about a character of mine. If anyone was going to tell you about Matthew Scudder, it ought to be the man himself.

Okay.

So suppose you could say I turned it over to Scudder. He’s literate, he’s insightful—we know that from the novels. Suppose he sat down at his computer to write the story of his life. What would he come up with?

And what do you do? Recap the books?

Why would I want to do that? And why would anybody want to read it? No, this is Matt telling the rest of the story, starting with his birth in September of 1938. (And one of the first things we learn is that the novels got the date wrong by around six months.)

So you’ve written the autobiography of a fictional character who’s already been the protagonist and first-person narrator of a whole series of novels.

Right, and they’re novels, styled and crafted to be effective fiction. What we’ve got here, on the other hand, is the hero of those novels sitting down to spell out the actual story of his life.

Has anyone ever done this sort of thing before?

Probably.

It sounds kind of PoMo, doesn’t it?

Huh?

You know. Postmodern.

I’m not sure I know what that means.

Or meta. Maybe that’s the word I want.

Well, I definitely don’t know what that one means.

Nobody does. The one thing I know is that this is something I have to read. When will I be able to do that?

Thanks to the miracle of self-publishing, you won’t have all that long to wait. It’s my plan to release the ebook and paperback editions of The Autobiography of Matthew Scudder sometime in May or June of 2023.

You could do it on your birthday. You seem to like to bring out books on your birthday. Isn’t that what you did with Dead Girl Blues and A Writer Prepares?

Good point. That would be June 24, 2023.

The very day you turn 85. And a scant three months before Matt celebrates that same birthday.

Two months and two weeks, actually. His birthday’s September 7.

Well, do it on your birthday, okay? I don’t want to wait any longer than I have to. Will there be a hardcover?

Indeed there will, a signed-and-numbered limited edition from Subterranean Press—and a super-deluxe lettered edition as well.

If only. What else can you tell me?

Not much. I’ve had readings from some trusted friends, and they all absolutely loved the book—but they’re hard-core Scudder fans, and a long way from being an impartial audience. My wife and daughters were my first readers, and my wife paid me the greatest compliment I can recall. She said she kept having to remind herself that what she was reading was fiction.

Wow.

On the other hand, I can’t imagine anybody who’s not an ardent Scudder enthusiast having any interest at all in the new book. “The life story of some made-up character I never heard of? You gotta be kidding.” So this is by no means a book with the word “bestseller” all over it like brown on rice.

As opposed to the new Burglar book.

Yes, The Burglar Who Met Fredric Brown is getting a heartening reception. Instead of scaring off readers, the parallel universe element seems to have energized the series, managing to make the new book different while keeping it very much the same as its fellows. It’s Bernie and Carolyn, both of them doing what they do best—and readers are responding even better than I’d hoped.

And why not? It’s the best of all possible worlds, right? Isn’t that the line you came up with?

I think Voltaire may have come up with it first. But never mind. Bernie’s knocking it out of the park, and Matt’s in the on-deck circle, and I have to say I’m feeling pretty good.

And what are you gonna do for an encore?

I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that. And you know what? I’m outta here. Enjoy the change of seasons, y’all. Fall has largely fallen, and winter’s waiting in the wings, so stay warm, stay dry, and find a good book to keep you company. And if it’s one I wrote, so much the better.

Cheers,

PS: As always, please feel free to forward this to anyone you think might find it of interest. And, if you yourself have received the newsletter from a friend and would like your own subscription, that’s easily arranged; an  email to lawbloc@gmail.com with LB’s Newsletter in the subject line will get the job done.