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Title: Is this Robert Parker's autobiography?
Review: This book is one of Robert Parker's few non-Spenser novels, though the protagonist has some sort of family resemblance to the Boston gumshoe. Like the Spenser novels, it's told in first person narrative and makes plenty of literary references. There's a friendship with a black man who boxes (like Hawk), and the girl eats fastidiously (like Susan). Much of the book takes place at Taft University, a fictional college that was the setting of Parker's Spenser novel Playmates.But what's most interesting about this book is that the protagonist describes his experiences as a writer and his work on a doctorate in English literature. At this point the character has less in common with Spenser and more in common with Robert Parker himself. One is left wondering if through this novel, Parker has given his readers more of an autobiographical glimpse of his own life and literary career.
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