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Random Walk
In Roseburg, Oregon, a bartender walks off his job and heads east with no destination in mind. The Cascades are in his way, but he doesn't let that stop him. He keeps walking. And other people are moved to join him, and as they walk the group generates a sort of collective energy, and unexpected things happen. Miraculous things, you might say. Meanwhile, in Kansas, a perfectly respectable real estate professional loses his temper with a prostitute and surprises himself by killing her. He's even more surprised to discover that he enjoys it as he has never enjoyed anything before. It's even more enjoyable the second time. So he puts his work and his marriage and his whole life on hold and drives around the country, looking for more women to kill. RANDOM WALK is unlike anything else Lawrence Block has written. Originally published by Tor Books in 1988, it got spotty reviews and disappointing sales. A lot of people didn't know what to make of it. Here's the author's report of reactions over the "Sometimes at a book signing or other public appearance, someone'll come up to me and say, 'You know, I've enjoyed everything you've written, except there was one book that just didn't work for me at all, and I couldn't figure out what you had in mind when you wrote it.' And someone else will say, "I've read and enjoyed your books for years, but there's one book that hit me like a ton of stone tablets, and I've read it seventeen times and I get something new from it each time and I have to say it changed my life.' And I'll know right away that they're both talking about RANDOM WALK. I suppose for some people it's just another book, but for a sizable proportion of readers it's a definite outlier—they either love it like crazy or they don't get it at all." RANDOM WALK has been in and out of print in the thirty years since it first appeared, delighting some readers and confusing others. We're now very pleased to make it newly available, so that you may decide for yourself what you think of it.
288 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1988
27 people are currently reading
139 people want to read
About the author
Lawrence Block
768 books2,958 followersLawrence Block has been writing crime, mystery, and suspense fiction for more than half a century. He has published in excess (oh, wretched excess!) of 100 books, and no end of short stories.
Born in Buffalo, N.Y., LB attended Antioch College, but left before completing his studies; school authorities advised him that they felt he’d be happier elsewhere, and he thought this was remarkably perceptive of them.
His earliest work, published pseudonymously in the late 1950s, was mostly in the field of midcentury erotica, an apprenticeship he shared with Donald E. Westlake and Robert Silverberg. The first time Lawrence Block’s name appeared in print was when his short story “You Can’t Lose” was published in the February 1958 issue of Manhunt. The first book published under his own name was Mona (1961); it was reissued several times over the years, once as Sweet Slow Death. In 2005 it became the first offering from Hard Case Crime, and bore for the first time LB’s original title, Grifter’s Game.
LB is best known for his series characters, including cop-turned-private investigator Matthew Scudder, gentleman burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr, globe-trotting insomniac Evan Tanner, and introspective assassin Keller.
Because one name is never enough, LB has also published under pseudonyms including Jill Emerson, John Warren Wells, Lesley Evans, and Anne Campbell Clarke.
LB’s magazine appearances include American Heritage, Redbook, Playboy, Linn’s Stamp News, Cosmopolitan, GQ, and The New York Times. His monthly instructional column ran in Writer’s Digest for 14 years, and led to a string of books for writers, including the classics Telling Lies for Fun & Profit and The Liar’s Bible. He has also written episodic television (Tilt!) and the Wong Kar-wai film, My Blueberry Nights.
Several of LB’s books have been filmed. The latest, A Walk Among the Tombstones, stars Liam Neeson as Matthew Scudder and is scheduled for release in September, 2014.
LB is a Grand Master of Mystery Writers of America, and a past president of MWA and the Private Eye Writers of America. He has won the Edgar and Shamus awards four times each, and the Japanese Maltese Falcon award twice, as well as the Nero Wolfe and Philip Marlowe awards, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Private Eye Writers of America, and the Diamond Dagger for Life Achievement from the Crime Writers Association (UK). He’s also been honored with the Gumshoe Lifetime Achievement Award from Mystery Ink magazine and the Edward D. Hoch Memorial Golden Derringer for Lifetime Achievement in the short story. In France, he has been proclaimed a Grand Maitre du Roman Noir and has twice been awarded the Societe 813 trophy. He has been a guest of honor at Bouchercon and at book fairs and mystery festivals in France, Germany, Australia, Italy, New Zealand, Spain and Taiwan. As if that were not enough, he was also presented with the key to the city of Muncie, Indiana. (But as soon as he left, they changed the locks.)
LB and his wife Lynne are enthusiastic New Yorkers and relentless world travelers; the two are members of the Travelers Century Club, and have visited around 160 countries.
He is a modest and humble fellow, although you would never guess as much from this biographical note.
Born in Buffalo, N.Y., LB attended Antioch College, but left before completing his studies; school authorities advised him that they felt he’d be happier elsewhere, and he thought this was remarkably perceptive of them.
His earliest work, published pseudonymously in the late 1950s, was mostly in the field of midcentury erotica, an apprenticeship he shared with Donald E. Westlake and Robert Silverberg. The first time Lawrence Block’s name appeared in print was when his short story “You Can’t Lose” was published in the February 1958 issue of Manhunt. The first book published under his own name was Mona (1961); it was reissued several times over the years, once as Sweet Slow Death. In 2005 it became the first offering from Hard Case Crime, and bore for the first time LB’s original title, Grifter’s Game.
LB is best known for his series characters, including cop-turned-private investigator Matthew Scudder, gentleman burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr, globe-trotting insomniac Evan Tanner, and introspective assassin Keller.
Because one name is never enough, LB has also published under pseudonyms including Jill Emerson, John Warren Wells, Lesley Evans, and Anne Campbell Clarke.
LB’s magazine appearances include American Heritage, Redbook, Playboy, Linn’s Stamp News, Cosmopolitan, GQ, and The New York Times. His monthly instructional column ran in Writer’s Digest for 14 years, and led to a string of books for writers, including the classics Telling Lies for Fun & Profit and The Liar’s Bible. He has also written episodic television (Tilt!) and the Wong Kar-wai film, My Blueberry Nights.
Several of LB’s books have been filmed. The latest, A Walk Among the Tombstones, stars Liam Neeson as Matthew Scudder and is scheduled for release in September, 2014.
LB is a Grand Master of Mystery Writers of America, and a past president of MWA and the Private Eye Writers of America. He has won the Edgar and Shamus awards four times each, and the Japanese Maltese Falcon award twice, as well as the Nero Wolfe and Philip Marlowe awards, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Private Eye Writers of America, and the Diamond Dagger for Life Achievement from the Crime Writers Association (UK). He’s also been honored with the Gumshoe Lifetime Achievement Award from Mystery Ink magazine and the Edward D. Hoch Memorial Golden Derringer for Lifetime Achievement in the short story. In France, he has been proclaimed a Grand Maitre du Roman Noir and has twice been awarded the Societe 813 trophy. He has been a guest of honor at Bouchercon and at book fairs and mystery festivals in France, Germany, Australia, Italy, New Zealand, Spain and Taiwan. As if that were not enough, he was also presented with the key to the city of Muncie, Indiana. (But as soon as he left, they changed the locks.)
LB and his wife Lynne are enthusiastic New Yorkers and relentless world travelers; the two are members of the Travelers Century Club, and have visited around 160 countries.
He is a modest and humble fellow, although you would never guess as much from this biographical note.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 44 reviews
February 19, 2019
I almost quit 1/4 through, but glad I didn't. This story picks up mightily til the end. 8 of 10 stars
March 9, 2014
Lawrence Block is best known for his fine detective fiction. I’m not a big fan of the genre, but picked up this book anyway because it promised something different. In the back matter, Block indicated that fans either loved it or hated it, but it remained one of his personal favorites. I was intrigued. I had no idea what lay in store.
The plot line (if you can even call it that) is simple. Bartender Guthrie, prompted by an inner voice, decides to shuck the rather bland and pointless life he’s been living and go on walkabout. He literally walks away from his job, his apartment, his car, and his possessions. As he hikes through Oregon with only a day-pack, he gradually gains a following. An assortment of figures join him for reasons they cannot exactly explain. Each walks away from his or her life in exchange for the freedom of a different kind of journey.
Early on, Guthrie meets Sara, a psychotherapist going rapidly blind from some condition unknown to medicine. As her outer vision constricts and finally disappears altogether, however, her inner vision opens wide. She’s guided to leave her home in Indiana and travel west (with her 13 year-old son), arriving in a small Oregon town and parking herself at a specific motel a day before Guthrie and his new companion saunter up the road. Sara becomes the group’s blind prophetess.
As the growing band of itinerants make their way through Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and onward, they find that their walking results in the healing of old medical ailments and addictions. Psychological wounds of all kinds surface in bouts of tears, rage, or emotional paralysis, to be cleared through breathwork. Miracles abound.
But another plot line weaves through that of the beatific walkers. Mark is a rather bland, simple guy—a husband and father—who’s made millions by buying up decrepit properties in foreclosure en masse and renting them out for income. And oh yeah, he gets off on killing women. Lots of women. He decides to take the summer off and go on a killing spree. While the walkers make their way slowly eastward on foot, shedding their possessions and guided only by Guthrie’s intuition, Mark drives his Lincoln randomly about the Midwest, ostensibly to accumulate more property that he doesn’t need, but in truth scouting out women who attract him in order to kill them. The murders are described in graphic, near clinical detail. They are very hard to stomach and would have been unreadable (and a reason to trash the book) were it not for the counterpoint of the walkers. As the walkers numbers swell to over one hundred, Mark’s body count rises in tandem.
In this way, the book showcases two models for the accumulation of power, one centered around communality and love, the other lust and fear. The proponents of these models are clearly destined to collide at some point, and indeed they do, with results that might disappoint and even anger some, but which are wholly consistent with the story’s central premise. No big twists or surprises here, except for a key insight into the seeds of Mark’s murderous passion.
Random Walk cobbles together many tropes of ‘New Age’ thinking—energetic healing, holotropic breathwork, inner voices, vision quests, the principles of A Course in Miracles, even ironically the Mayan 2012 prophecies. These are offered up so matter-of-factly that I can understand why one reviewer (on Amazon) saw the book as a parody. Some miracles are indeed over-the-top (e.g. the perfect weather and the walkers near invisibility to law enforcement). The inner voice thing could have come off as silly if handled by a lesser writer, but Block knows enough to keep it minimal and unobtrusive. And yes, Sara’s disquisitions become a bit preachy and tedious at times: too much holistic info-dump. But Random Walk is not parody. The characters are too real, too serious. And Block’s metaphysical knowledge runs too deep. (He quotes directly from A Course in Miracles in at least one instance and paraphrases it several more times.) More significantly, the emotions sparked by the twin story lines are too raw, too heartfelt to be satirical. There’s real conviction here and I found it both compelling and moving.
This is not really a novel in any conventional sense of the word. There is no conflict apart from the juxtaposition of good and evil. There is no true protagonist. The characters do grow, but only in service to the overarching theme and not as a result of their interactions at the level of personality. No, the book is better regarded as an extended parable, a modern day Bible story. Think Exodus, (Sara mentions the burning bush) with the Hebrews freed from their oppression in Egypt and wandering on foot through the wilderness toward some Promised Land as yet unknown to them, guided by divine providence in the figure of Moses. In this sense, like Exodus, Random Walk recounts a spiritual journey. (I admit my bias here: I did after all write a book, From Plagues to Miracles, that views Exodus as a roadmap for the spiritual journey.) Random Walk is also a cautionary tale about the dangers facing humankind, and an inspiring portrait of the nature of true healing, how it has no limits except those we impose on ourselves by our own blinkered systems of belief.
If you’re skeptical of all phenomena that can’t be neatly measured and reproduced in a lab, or if you find the idea of a spiritual reality beyond the realm of the five senses to be anathema, then Random Walk is not a book for you. Pass it by. But if you have felt the tug of unseen guidance in your life, if you’ve had miraculous encounters that can’t be explained by so-called rational means, if you know in your heart that there must be a better way—then drop whatever you’re doing and start walking. Join the journey. Read this little treasure of a book.
The plot line (if you can even call it that) is simple. Bartender Guthrie, prompted by an inner voice, decides to shuck the rather bland and pointless life he’s been living and go on walkabout. He literally walks away from his job, his apartment, his car, and his possessions. As he hikes through Oregon with only a day-pack, he gradually gains a following. An assortment of figures join him for reasons they cannot exactly explain. Each walks away from his or her life in exchange for the freedom of a different kind of journey.
Early on, Guthrie meets Sara, a psychotherapist going rapidly blind from some condition unknown to medicine. As her outer vision constricts and finally disappears altogether, however, her inner vision opens wide. She’s guided to leave her home in Indiana and travel west (with her 13 year-old son), arriving in a small Oregon town and parking herself at a specific motel a day before Guthrie and his new companion saunter up the road. Sara becomes the group’s blind prophetess.
As the growing band of itinerants make their way through Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and onward, they find that their walking results in the healing of old medical ailments and addictions. Psychological wounds of all kinds surface in bouts of tears, rage, or emotional paralysis, to be cleared through breathwork. Miracles abound.
But another plot line weaves through that of the beatific walkers. Mark is a rather bland, simple guy—a husband and father—who’s made millions by buying up decrepit properties in foreclosure en masse and renting them out for income. And oh yeah, he gets off on killing women. Lots of women. He decides to take the summer off and go on a killing spree. While the walkers make their way slowly eastward on foot, shedding their possessions and guided only by Guthrie’s intuition, Mark drives his Lincoln randomly about the Midwest, ostensibly to accumulate more property that he doesn’t need, but in truth scouting out women who attract him in order to kill them. The murders are described in graphic, near clinical detail. They are very hard to stomach and would have been unreadable (and a reason to trash the book) were it not for the counterpoint of the walkers. As the walkers numbers swell to over one hundred, Mark’s body count rises in tandem.
In this way, the book showcases two models for the accumulation of power, one centered around communality and love, the other lust and fear. The proponents of these models are clearly destined to collide at some point, and indeed they do, with results that might disappoint and even anger some, but which are wholly consistent with the story’s central premise. No big twists or surprises here, except for a key insight into the seeds of Mark’s murderous passion.
Random Walk cobbles together many tropes of ‘New Age’ thinking—energetic healing, holotropic breathwork, inner voices, vision quests, the principles of A Course in Miracles, even ironically the Mayan 2012 prophecies. These are offered up so matter-of-factly that I can understand why one reviewer (on Amazon) saw the book as a parody. Some miracles are indeed over-the-top (e.g. the perfect weather and the walkers near invisibility to law enforcement). The inner voice thing could have come off as silly if handled by a lesser writer, but Block knows enough to keep it minimal and unobtrusive. And yes, Sara’s disquisitions become a bit preachy and tedious at times: too much holistic info-dump. But Random Walk is not parody. The characters are too real, too serious. And Block’s metaphysical knowledge runs too deep. (He quotes directly from A Course in Miracles in at least one instance and paraphrases it several more times.) More significantly, the emotions sparked by the twin story lines are too raw, too heartfelt to be satirical. There’s real conviction here and I found it both compelling and moving.
This is not really a novel in any conventional sense of the word. There is no conflict apart from the juxtaposition of good and evil. There is no true protagonist. The characters do grow, but only in service to the overarching theme and not as a result of their interactions at the level of personality. No, the book is better regarded as an extended parable, a modern day Bible story. Think Exodus, (Sara mentions the burning bush) with the Hebrews freed from their oppression in Egypt and wandering on foot through the wilderness toward some Promised Land as yet unknown to them, guided by divine providence in the figure of Moses. In this sense, like Exodus, Random Walk recounts a spiritual journey. (I admit my bias here: I did after all write a book, From Plagues to Miracles, that views Exodus as a roadmap for the spiritual journey.) Random Walk is also a cautionary tale about the dangers facing humankind, and an inspiring portrait of the nature of true healing, how it has no limits except those we impose on ourselves by our own blinkered systems of belief.
If you’re skeptical of all phenomena that can’t be neatly measured and reproduced in a lab, or if you find the idea of a spiritual reality beyond the realm of the five senses to be anathema, then Random Walk is not a book for you. Pass it by. But if you have felt the tug of unseen guidance in your life, if you’ve had miraculous encounters that can’t be explained by so-called rational means, if you know in your heart that there must be a better way—then drop whatever you’re doing and start walking. Join the journey. Read this little treasure of a book.
December 26, 2019
This is an early work from Lawrence Block that has been reissued. A thought-provoking story that really makes you think about the power that people can have when they come together for the good of human kind. 5 out of 10.
April 17, 2020
Written in 1988, this is the New Age Novel (he said it, not me) about a group of individuals who start off walking and eventually figure out that they're going to change the world by adopting universal acceptance and the ability to regenerate one's own teeth in a day or absorb tacky spiderweb tattoos. Well, what if I like my little tattoo, guys? Do I lose it anyway?
This spins on the New Age aphorism that one chooses one's destiny as well as one's prehistory. Mark's mom chose to die in the delivery room, just as he chose (the bitch) who gave partial birth to him. The women he murdered chose their destiny so it's not as if we should hold him accountable for their deaths, and if we judge him for being a prolific serial murderer, then we're just not quite in touch with our own wolfish interiors yet.
I remember one night when a probation officer told a guest at my home that the young woman had chosen to be brutally raped at the age of 5, had chosen the abusive and condemning mother who had rejected her for having had sex with her daddy, and had chosen abandonment shortly thereafter. She suggested that the sobbing woman get in touch with her need for that sort of violence just before I ejected her from my home. (The PO, not the weeper) I wondered if she used that theory on her probationers, "The guy at the 7-11 chose to be robbed. Let's figure out how to come to terms with that since you were simply acting out your and his psychic destinies."
I'm more of a Frostian myself: "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood and sorry I could not travel both...." But I think it's the conscious choices that matter.
Fast forward a year. All of America is walking around getting in harmony. Who is growing the tomatoes? Who is making pizza and keeping the hotel rooms clean so 200 walkers can show up to shower? Oh, Block figures in the drones, too, the people who don't see what is going on and who provide, I suppose, the bedrock for the rest of us to walk upon.
This spins on the New Age aphorism that one chooses one's destiny as well as one's prehistory. Mark's mom chose to die in the delivery room, just as he chose (the bitch) who gave partial birth to him. The women he murdered chose their destiny so it's not as if we should hold him accountable for their deaths, and if we judge him for being a prolific serial murderer, then we're just not quite in touch with our own wolfish interiors yet.
I remember one night when a probation officer told a guest at my home that the young woman had chosen to be brutally raped at the age of 5, had chosen the abusive and condemning mother who had rejected her for having had sex with her daddy, and had chosen abandonment shortly thereafter. She suggested that the sobbing woman get in touch with her need for that sort of violence just before I ejected her from my home. (The PO, not the weeper) I wondered if she used that theory on her probationers, "The guy at the 7-11 chose to be robbed. Let's figure out how to come to terms with that since you were simply acting out your and his psychic destinies."
I'm more of a Frostian myself: "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood and sorry I could not travel both...." But I think it's the conscious choices that matter.
Fast forward a year. All of America is walking around getting in harmony. Who is growing the tomatoes? Who is making pizza and keeping the hotel rooms clean so 200 walkers can show up to shower? Oh, Block figures in the drones, too, the people who don't see what is going on and who provide, I suppose, the bedrock for the rest of us to walk upon.
February 26, 2019
Not what I expected, but an insane page turner. Really enjoyed this more than most of the standard Block standalone novels
October 17, 2018
In the blurb, author Lawrence Block says of this book that his readers “either love it like crazy or they don't get it at all”. I don’t feel like I didn’t understand it, but I certainly did not love it like crazy. I suspect there are other options.
There are two threads in Random Walk: one story is the parable of Guthrie, Sara and their walkers. And it is a parable: a group of new-agey types walk away from their old selves, literally, to become new, better and healthier people hoofing it across the northwest, picking up followers and believers along the way, subsisting on nuts, berries and goodwill. The other story is that of serial killer Mark Adlon, who is remorselessly slashing and strangling his way through a swath of mostly-random, attractive young women. Mark’s half of the story is told in excruciating and graphic detail, with a hyper-realism that puts it at odds with the story of the cult. As these stories build to their obvious collision, they’re both very good in their own way. The character work here isn’t his best, but Block can string a sentence together with the best of them.
I just don’t like anything that happens after the stories intersect, which accounts for the last 20% of the book. I don’t buy Mark’s motivation or origin story, I don’t agree with the philosophy behind how the group elects to deal with him, and I couldn’t be more opposed to the victim-blaming that ensues.
There are two threads in Random Walk: one story is the parable of Guthrie, Sara and their walkers. And it is a parable: a group of new-agey types walk away from their old selves, literally, to become new, better and healthier people hoofing it across the northwest, picking up followers and believers along the way, subsisting on nuts, berries and goodwill. The other story is that of serial killer Mark Adlon, who is remorselessly slashing and strangling his way through a swath of mostly-random, attractive young women. Mark’s half of the story is told in excruciating and graphic detail, with a hyper-realism that puts it at odds with the story of the cult. As these stories build to their obvious collision, they’re both very good in their own way. The character work here isn’t his best, but Block can string a sentence together with the best of them.
I just don’t like anything that happens after the stories intersect, which accounts for the last 20% of the book. I don’t buy Mark’s motivation or origin story, I don’t agree with the philosophy behind how the group elects to deal with him, and I couldn’t be more opposed to the victim-blaming that ensues.
August 17, 2009
Actually, I found this book complete different from any Lawrence Block I have read. Sometimes I found it annoying as it seemed to be some long, repetitive metaphor for some sort of spiritual journey. Yet... I couldn't leave the book unread. I still find it annoying but I really got something very good from the book. It stayed with me.
January 23, 2019
I’ve been a fan of Lawrence Block since the mid-80s, but somehow I missed this book that came out in 1988. And there may be good reason for that – it’s a novel that not only steps outside his usual turf (crime novels) but also didn’t do well at the time (also unusual for a Block novel, at least by this point in his career).
According to Block, he just had this idea of a man in Oregon who isn’t satisfied with his life, hears a voice suggesting he literally walk away from it all, upon which he packs a bag, starts walking east and keeps going – and Block ran with it until three weeks later he had a novel. A mysterious force compels others to join Guthrie’s walk, protects them from the elements and even provides healing miracles. This being Block, there’s also a very nasty serial killer on the loose somewhere in the Midwest.
As always, Block is good at keeping you turning the pages, if only to find out (1) where all of this is going and (2) what the serial killer has to do with anything. However, the eventual explanation for the walk isn't very convincing, and the resolution regarding the dual narratives – while perhaps daring – beggars belief even within the New Age spiritual framework Block employs, which itself is problematic. As a fan, I did enjoy watching Block try something different (although the serial killer angle is vintage Block), and it was a nice try. But ultimately I couldn't suspend my disbelief enough to accommodate it.
According to Block, he just had this idea of a man in Oregon who isn’t satisfied with his life, hears a voice suggesting he literally walk away from it all, upon which he packs a bag, starts walking east and keeps going – and Block ran with it until three weeks later he had a novel. A mysterious force compels others to join Guthrie’s walk, protects them from the elements and even provides healing miracles. This being Block, there’s also a very nasty serial killer on the loose somewhere in the Midwest.
As always, Block is good at keeping you turning the pages, if only to find out (1) where all of this is going and (2) what the serial killer has to do with anything. However, the eventual explanation for the walk isn't very convincing, and the resolution regarding the dual narratives – while perhaps daring – beggars belief even within the New Age spiritual framework Block employs, which itself is problematic. As a fan, I did enjoy watching Block try something different (although the serial killer angle is vintage Block), and it was a nice try. But ultimately I couldn't suspend my disbelief enough to accommodate it.
February 23, 2024
I happen to have read read a lot of Lawrence Block. To his Bernie Rodenbarr burglar series, as well as early short stories in Readers Digest. To me this is his worst writing by far.
All these people walking, where? You guessed it, nowhere lol. Do they ever change shoes? After walking half the country? Are they superheroes as they all develop special healing powers? Are they going to save the world as hinted? SPOILER ALERT.....
THE BOOK ENDS AND THEY ARE STILL WALKING. WHERE? NOBODY KNOWS. MAYBE THE WORST PART OF THE BOOK IS WHERE BLOCK INTRODUCES A SERIAL KILLER. MANY CHAPTERS ARE DEDICATED TO THIS SERIAL KILLER WHO MOSTLY STRANGLES WOMEN FOR THE JOY OF IT. OVER 100 VICTIMS LET ME ADD. HE DECIDES TO JOIN THE GROUP WALKING AND PROCEEDS TO EXPLAIN HIS DEEDS. WHAT DIES THIS GROUP OF HEALERS DO? YOU GUESSED IT? THEY HEAL HIM. YOU SEE EVERYONE SHOULD BE FORGIVEN, SORT OF A JESUS LOVES YOU ON STEROIDS. THIS MAN WOULD OF BEEN CAUGHT YEARS AGO. LEAVING EVIDENCE EVERYWHERE BUT LAW ENFORCEMENT IS NEVER MENTIONED LOL. OVER 100 WOMEN KILLED, LETS HEAL HIM. SORRY, ONE OF THE DUMBEST STORYLINES EVER, ONE GUY STARTS OFF WALKING WITH NO REASON WHY, GREAT START LAWRENCE BLOCK, BUT TO END A BOOK WITH OVER 200 PEOPLE WALKING GOD KNOWS WHERE AND A SERIAL KILLER WHO HAD MANY CHAPTERS WRITTEN ABOUT HIS ESCAPADES IS BASICALLY LEFT OUT OF THE LAST CHAPTERS? SKIP THIS, WISH I HAD!!!
All these people walking, where? You guessed it, nowhere lol. Do they ever change shoes? After walking half the country? Are they superheroes as they all develop special healing powers? Are they going to save the world as hinted? SPOILER ALERT.....
THE BOOK ENDS AND THEY ARE STILL WALKING. WHERE? NOBODY KNOWS. MAYBE THE WORST PART OF THE BOOK IS WHERE BLOCK INTRODUCES A SERIAL KILLER. MANY CHAPTERS ARE DEDICATED TO THIS SERIAL KILLER WHO MOSTLY STRANGLES WOMEN FOR THE JOY OF IT. OVER 100 VICTIMS LET ME ADD. HE DECIDES TO JOIN THE GROUP WALKING AND PROCEEDS TO EXPLAIN HIS DEEDS. WHAT DIES THIS GROUP OF HEALERS DO? YOU GUESSED IT? THEY HEAL HIM. YOU SEE EVERYONE SHOULD BE FORGIVEN, SORT OF A JESUS LOVES YOU ON STEROIDS. THIS MAN WOULD OF BEEN CAUGHT YEARS AGO. LEAVING EVIDENCE EVERYWHERE BUT LAW ENFORCEMENT IS NEVER MENTIONED LOL. OVER 100 WOMEN KILLED, LETS HEAL HIM. SORRY, ONE OF THE DUMBEST STORYLINES EVER, ONE GUY STARTS OFF WALKING WITH NO REASON WHY, GREAT START LAWRENCE BLOCK, BUT TO END A BOOK WITH OVER 200 PEOPLE WALKING GOD KNOWS WHERE AND A SERIAL KILLER WHO HAD MANY CHAPTERS WRITTEN ABOUT HIS ESCAPADES IS BASICALLY LEFT OUT OF THE LAST CHAPTERS? SKIP THIS, WISH I HAD!!!
July 27, 2011
Random Walk by Lawrence Block is another stop on my Follow That Blurb Reading Challenge journey. Originally written in 1987, this book is a departure from Block's usual mystery/thriller fare...something I chose deliberately. It was beginning to look like my Blurb journey was going to begin and end with mysteries. I was kind of hoping the trip would be a little more varied. So, when Block blurbed my last read (No Body by Nancy Pickard) I just kept scrolling through his work to see what might strike my fancy. And came across this unusual novel. Very unusual. I would say that 90% of the book is schizophrenic.
Yes. There are two main stories going on throughout most of the book. First, we have the story of Guthrie, a bartender who's fairly happy with his life--going along just fine--when all of a sudden one day while he's waiting on a friend who's having an abortion he hears a voice tell him to take a walk. So he does. Quits his job. Sells his car. Cleans out his bank account of all but the minimum and just starts walking East. That's all he knows--gonna head East from Oregon. Doesn't know why, other than it just feels right. Along the way, he encounters other kindred spirits who just join him. At the same time as he's getting his message from the astral plane or wherever, Sara in Fort Wayne, Indiana begins to go blind. And decides that she's meant to go blind so she can see better. She quits her job; takes her son out of school; clears out as much cash as she can; and hops on a bus headed West. So she can meet up with Guthrie and company. As they walk they pick up more and more people and all sorts of New Age-y, mystical, healing-power, find yourself, center-yourself-breathing, heal the planet stuff begins to happen. As Guthrie says, by the time they reach the East Coast the reader shouldn't be surprised if the group isn't able to keep on walking on the water of the Atlantic Ocean and go trekking through Europe.
In story number two we have Mark, a power-hungry businessman and serial killer who gets his sexual jollies from knocking off as many women as possible. He's been at it for eight years--previously taking it slow and only killing at random as he travels for business. But lately the hunger has built and he decided to up his travel schedule for the summer and see how many he can do before the cold weather hits. His path keeps circling closer and closer to that of Guthrie's group....what will happen when the New Age peace and love and healing meets such a definite evil?
Despite the serial killer in storyline number two, as I mentioned above this is NOT a thriller. We're not waiting to see if Mark gets caught and there's definitely no detecting and mystery going on (unless you count the mystery of the New Age stuff). This story is a journey. It's not about where they're going; it's about what happens while they're on their way. It's about growth and personal healing. I'm not much into the whole New Age philosophy, but there are definitely some pieces of the message in this weird book that the human race could stand to learn. That we're all in this together. That what we do to others affects us--who we are and what we are. That if we treated each other and the world we live in better, then we just might make it. And the world would be a lot better for it.
Like I said, this is one weird book. I didn't know quite what to do with it. But I was compelled to keep reading. Couldn't stop if I wanted to. That must be a sign of powerful writing--even if I don't entirely agree with the message being conveyed. Three and 3/4 stars (almost four)--all for that powerful writing.
Yes. There are two main stories going on throughout most of the book. First, we have the story of Guthrie, a bartender who's fairly happy with his life--going along just fine--when all of a sudden one day while he's waiting on a friend who's having an abortion he hears a voice tell him to take a walk. So he does. Quits his job. Sells his car. Cleans out his bank account of all but the minimum and just starts walking East. That's all he knows--gonna head East from Oregon. Doesn't know why, other than it just feels right. Along the way, he encounters other kindred spirits who just join him. At the same time as he's getting his message from the astral plane or wherever, Sara in Fort Wayne, Indiana begins to go blind. And decides that she's meant to go blind so she can see better. She quits her job; takes her son out of school; clears out as much cash as she can; and hops on a bus headed West. So she can meet up with Guthrie and company. As they walk they pick up more and more people and all sorts of New Age-y, mystical, healing-power, find yourself, center-yourself-breathing, heal the planet stuff begins to happen. As Guthrie says, by the time they reach the East Coast the reader shouldn't be surprised if the group isn't able to keep on walking on the water of the Atlantic Ocean and go trekking through Europe.
In story number two we have Mark, a power-hungry businessman and serial killer who gets his sexual jollies from knocking off as many women as possible. He's been at it for eight years--previously taking it slow and only killing at random as he travels for business. But lately the hunger has built and he decided to up his travel schedule for the summer and see how many he can do before the cold weather hits. His path keeps circling closer and closer to that of Guthrie's group....what will happen when the New Age peace and love and healing meets such a definite evil?
Despite the serial killer in storyline number two, as I mentioned above this is NOT a thriller. We're not waiting to see if Mark gets caught and there's definitely no detecting and mystery going on (unless you count the mystery of the New Age stuff). This story is a journey. It's not about where they're going; it's about what happens while they're on their way. It's about growth and personal healing. I'm not much into the whole New Age philosophy, but there are definitely some pieces of the message in this weird book that the human race could stand to learn. That we're all in this together. That what we do to others affects us--who we are and what we are. That if we treated each other and the world we live in better, then we just might make it. And the world would be a lot better for it.
Like I said, this is one weird book. I didn't know quite what to do with it. But I was compelled to keep reading. Couldn't stop if I wanted to. That must be a sign of powerful writing--even if I don't entirely agree with the message being conveyed. Three and 3/4 stars (almost four)--all for that powerful writing.
February 21, 2017
Talk about a walk on the wild side!
January 20, 2019
I am a big fan of Lawrence Block, and until now I didn't think he could write a bad book. This one seemed to me to be a bad idea from start to finish. It alternates chapters between a story that seems so naive, simple-minded, and new-agey as to be parody, and the exploits of a vicious serial killer whose victims are all women. The first is about a man who hears a voice and decides (literally) to walk away from his old life. He gradually collects like-minded people and they become a crowd of several hundred moving east across the northern plains. They are filled with love and a strong spiritual force: people quit smoking, their headaches disappear as do their tattoos, their arthritis is cured, their teeth grow back, even nerves destroyed by shrapnel in Vietnam are repaired. They are mysteriously protected from the elements (both the weather and the police). The only redeeming quality about this happy-clappy story is occasional wry humor: at one point, after the group's high priestess delivers her usual mix of half-baked Freudianism and crystals, one character says, "So just because you think you're a chicken doesn't mean you are a chicken, and it's safe to know that you're not really a chicken, and you can love yourself even if you are a chicken, or even if you think you are. But in the meantime we could use the eggs." The only reason I kept reading was to find out what would happen when the vicious serial killer ran into this crowd. It was disappointing in the extreme. You'll never guess who he was really killing when he murdered all those women...
January 23, 2008
Could you forgive a serial killer? You could, and you would, if you give yourself over to the narrative in this story. Read it after reading American Psycho. Then take a long shower.
Really, in Random Walk, the protagonist, a modern day Jesus if you will, gives up his job and starts walking. Before long others join him, we don't know why, and the whole cavalcade is trooping on down the road.
We hear people's stories, feel the empathy the protagonist feels and before long we all feel pretty rosy. I guess in a way, that sums up the whole New Age Movement.
What a strange and quirky novel by a really good writer who departs from his hard boiled ways.
Really, in Random Walk, the protagonist, a modern day Jesus if you will, gives up his job and starts walking. Before long others join him, we don't know why, and the whole cavalcade is trooping on down the road.
We hear people's stories, feel the empathy the protagonist feels and before long we all feel pretty rosy. I guess in a way, that sums up the whole New Age Movement.
What a strange and quirky novel by a really good writer who departs from his hard boiled ways.
July 26, 2014
This is my hands-down favorite of Block's books, even though I feel the conclusion almost trivial I'm not sure there should be, or even needs to be, a conclusion. For a truly in-depth review here on GR, see that of Robert S. Rosenthal. It's brilliant.
January 12, 2019
The majority of this book is told in two alternating viewpoints, one, the walkers, a growing group of people experiencing amazing metaphysical psychic powers to heal, to understand, to evolve. The other story arc is that of a murderous psychopath crisscrossing the United States slaughtering women at random.
The first half, maybe more, of the book was interesting if a little slow and meandering. And while I'm not a major fan of multiple story arcs in a single novel as I get comfortable and interested in how things are going in one place and all of a sudden you're somewhere else experiencing something else.
I liked this portion of the book. I even got the metaphysical goings on and could believe them right up until the author tried, repeatedly throughout the rest of the book, that if you decide to kill someone it's because that person wants to die. . . wait, what? Yes, anyone killed, murdered, hit by a meteorite, etc. has decided to die and picked you or that meteor as their method of death. No, I get interconnected consciousness. I get healing and taking away and casting away pain. I get spirit walking and vision quests but that? You were murdered because somewhere inside you decided to BE murdered or hit by a bus, whatever? Nope. Not buying it. Breaks the suspension of disbelief like a sledgehammer on an chicken egg.
Then in the latter portion of the book the murderer meets the walkers and. . . not going to spoil it but it didn't happen as I expected or wanted or was willing to accept. I didn't care for how it went but I'm not an evolved being like those members of the walkers.
The ending of the book was also a little too easy, too quick. Can humans overcome ego and the need for not possessions but recognition entirely? Not even in a generation but a few months? Is enlightenment that easy? I mean, yeah, I'd love to regrow all the teeth I've lost but could I shed my cell, tablet, Kindle (this book does take place before the technological gods have awoke), even my camera? Can I just walk (something I can barely do!) away and become a better person?
I just don't know. . .
The first half, maybe more, of the book was interesting if a little slow and meandering. And while I'm not a major fan of multiple story arcs in a single novel as I get comfortable and interested in how things are going in one place and all of a sudden you're somewhere else experiencing something else.
I liked this portion of the book. I even got the metaphysical goings on and could believe them right up until the author tried, repeatedly throughout the rest of the book, that if you decide to kill someone it's because that person wants to die. . . wait, what? Yes, anyone killed, murdered, hit by a meteorite, etc. has decided to die and picked you or that meteor as their method of death. No, I get interconnected consciousness. I get healing and taking away and casting away pain. I get spirit walking and vision quests but that? You were murdered because somewhere inside you decided to BE murdered or hit by a bus, whatever? Nope. Not buying it. Breaks the suspension of disbelief like a sledgehammer on an chicken egg.
Then in the latter portion of the book the murderer meets the walkers and. . . not going to spoil it but it didn't happen as I expected or wanted or was willing to accept. I didn't care for how it went but I'm not an evolved being like those members of the walkers.
The ending of the book was also a little too easy, too quick. Can humans overcome ego and the need for not possessions but recognition entirely? Not even in a generation but a few months? Is enlightenment that easy? I mean, yeah, I'd love to regrow all the teeth I've lost but could I shed my cell, tablet, Kindle (this book does take place before the technological gods have awoke), even my camera? Can I just walk (something I can barely do!) away and become a better person?
I just don't know. . .
January 5, 2020
A hard book to categorize, and even harder to write about. I need to let this one ferment a bit, I'm not sure what to make of it, I'm writing this moments after finishing it. It's the second book I've read about long walks in the past 6 months. That wasn't by design, it just sort of happened. The first was "Wanderers," about another group that inexplicably starts to walk across the country. The two books are much, much, different beyond that one similarity— the Wanderers being more genre Science Fiction than Random Walk. Which is...it's hard to say what it is. It's spiritual, and I definitely disagree with the general doctrine behind some of the walker's beliefs. I think I'm more of an eye for an eye old Testament guy in some ways, particularly in my fiction, and when the two main story threads come together, I have to say I was a bit disappointed. I think as a reader, I've been conditioned in some ways to see the evil side of a story punished... I certainly wanted an earth-shattering ending to good old Mark--- but that wasn't in the cards. I'll have to think a bit more about this book, and maybe do an addendum to this review. I have a feeling it will stay with me. It's the first Lawrence Block book that I've read, so I came into it without any preconceived notions. I'll definitely try another at some point.
April 17, 2020
NOT recommended. This is a book about murdering women. The author has written horrific, graphic details about torturing and murdering women. He describes acts and fantasies of torturing and murdering women throughout the book. In one sentence, when the author explains that the murderer decided to stop raping his victims, the author uses the word “partners” to refer to the rape and murder victims. There is not a single moral, point, message, nor lesson contained in these pages that could make it worth reading through such explicit misogynistic horror. Any moral or other conclusion the book claims to deliver could be (and likely has been) made in thousands of other books that don’t subject the reader to the author’s ongoing, page-filled grotesque vivid imaginings (seriously horrifying such as slicing women’s breasts off) and other sickening descriptions very difficult to erase from memory after reading.
September 9, 2020
Hard to describe really - very different to Block's usual style, although it does feature a murder sub-plot (once a crime writer...). It could be labelled slipstream fiction; a journey across the mid-west when Guthrie decides to go for a walk during a turning point in his life... and gradually meets another, then another, who decide to listen to a voice and follow him.
He's no mystic, nor a cult leader - just an ordinary guy, walking.
Superbly written, with trademark Block dialogue.
It also feels like a late 80s travelogue; a slice of history, and as you read you ponder:
Shall I join them?
Recommended.
He's no mystic, nor a cult leader - just an ordinary guy, walking.
Superbly written, with trademark Block dialogue.
It also feels like a late 80s travelogue; a slice of history, and as you read you ponder:
Shall I join them?
Recommended.
December 5, 2024
I'm a big fan of Lawrence Block but this book is by far the weakest of his books, at least of those I have read. There are parallel stories, one about a group of people who give up their current lives to go-who knows where. Nowhere of interest anyway. And the other an unsettling, gory tale of a mild mannered husband/father whose secret hobby is murdering women-just for the fun of it. The ending, when the storylines cross is even more disappointing than the journey to get there was. The writing is good (which is why I kept going) but the story, what story there is, is not what I expect from someone of his caliber.
June 22, 2017
7/10
345 pages
Book #42 of 2017
Definitely a departure for Lawrence Block, Random Walk details a story about an Oregon bartender who quits his job one day and simply begins to walk east. He is soon joined by numerous other people who begin to share a social kind of cosmic energy that is aimed at curing the world of its many ills. This plot is juxtaposed by one of a serial killer crossing the country, performing twisted killings.
It's a weird one that only gets weirder as it progresses. I enjoyed it, but envision it being quite polarizing.
345 pages
Book #42 of 2017
Definitely a departure for Lawrence Block, Random Walk details a story about an Oregon bartender who quits his job one day and simply begins to walk east. He is soon joined by numerous other people who begin to share a social kind of cosmic energy that is aimed at curing the world of its many ills. This plot is juxtaposed by one of a serial killer crossing the country, performing twisted killings.
It's a weird one that only gets weirder as it progresses. I enjoyed it, but envision it being quite polarizing.
September 29, 2018
Interesting at the start but became repetitive. But worse, the ending was terrible.
***Spoiler Alert***
A vicious serial killer of women ends up being given a pass and faces no consequences at all for his horrible crimes. Worse, the so called good characters are aware of this and just accept him into their group with full forgiveness.
***Spoiler Alert***
A vicious serial killer of women ends up being given a pass and faces no consequences at all for his horrible crimes. Worse, the so called good characters are aware of this and just accept him into their group with full forgiveness.
December 26, 2018
Another (you should excuse the expression) Blockbuster!
I am a great fan of Lawrence Block’s Matthew Scudder series, as well as the Bernie Rhodenbarr books. Random Walk is as far from those as possible. At times it almost felt like Stephen King was doing the writing; at others I knew it was Lawrence Block.
Fascinating premise. Well-written as one can always expect.
I am a great fan of Lawrence Block’s Matthew Scudder series, as well as the Bernie Rhodenbarr books. Random Walk is as far from those as possible. At times it almost felt like Stephen King was doing the writing; at others I knew it was Lawrence Block.
Fascinating premise. Well-written as one can always expect.
March 11, 2022
The spiral of addiction and recovery through a (severely) compressed journey through 12-step actions, group therapy and a dollop of Mary Baker Eddy thrown in for good measure. For Block-Scudder-Rhoddenbar-etc fans, all expectations need to be tempered. This is not a mystery; it is a sometimes verbose new age fable with all the subtlety of a brick through a windshield.
July 24, 2017
I liked it, but I didn't LOVE it the way I do so much of Block's work. There are some amazing descriptive passages (both beautiful and disturbing in turns), some wonderful character-building ... but the end left me feeling a bit disconnected.
January 20, 2024
this book will either find you at the right time or it won’t
The two storylines seem incompatible until they don’t.
This book is quite a departure from the Matthew Scudder books I’ve read by the same author but as I leaned into the book I enjoyed and appreciated it immensely.
The two storylines seem incompatible until they don’t.
This book is quite a departure from the Matthew Scudder books I’ve read by the same author but as I leaned into the book I enjoyed and appreciated it immensely.
December 22, 2017
If you've read lots of Lawrence Block this is a way to experience him trying something a little higher-octane.
April 15, 2023
Interesting idea but creepy af
September 18, 2016
5/10 - A bit long and the supernatural aspect didn't work well for me. Contains a couple of absolutely beautiful passages.
March 19, 2012
LB has said many times that if there's one book of his that people either revere or hate then this is it. And it is a bit of an oddity: man decides to pack in his job and just walk (literally) and as he journeys across America he's joined by others who seem to receive a message and know it's what they want (or need) to do. Parallel to this runs an excellent tale of a murdering businessman (along the lines of Block's hit man episodes except he does it for pleasure not money). The two threads eventually join up as the 'walking' element of the book turns ever more surreal.
There is a big message here and I can see that some people might buy into it, though I'm really struggling to see it as the 'life changing' tome some claim. Not really for me, this one.
There is a big message here and I can see that some people might buy into it, though I'm really struggling to see it as the 'life changing' tome some claim. Not really for me, this one.
October 21, 2012
Well, this wasn't your typical Larry Block book; I'm not sure how I felt about the touchy-feely group sessions that happen near the end. (On the other hand, I just noticed one of the editions was subtitled "A Novel for a New Age.")
Some backstory: Larry was involved with a woman—probably the one who was to become his wife—and that shaped the plot and storyline and made his murderer a more sympathetic character; he reformed, and realized he was changing when he was about to strangle a woman he met, and ended up giving her a shoulder rub instead.
Again, it just wasn't your typical Larry Block book.
Some backstory: Larry was involved with a woman—probably the one who was to become his wife—and that shaped the plot and storyline and made his murderer a more sympathetic character; he reformed, and realized he was changing when he was about to strangle a woman he met, and ended up giving her a shoulder rub instead.
Again, it just wasn't your typical Larry Block book.
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