Customer Reviews

Early Autumn

5 star:		(40)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Most 'serious' reviewers of Robert Parker's Spenser books will argue that "A Catskill Eagle" is the best of the series. I won't disagree that it's very, very good, but I think Spenser (and by extension, Parker) is at his best in "Early Autumn".

Primarily, through the books, Spenser has deep relationships only with Susan, and to a lesser extent, Hawk. We really don't know much about him beyond the front he puts up for his clients and his opponents. "Autumn" is the exception to that; we see him treat Paul in much the same way he must have been treated as a child and the same way he would have treated a child of his own, if he'd had one -- with respect and decency. He drags the 'real' Paul out of the shell Paul had constructed to protect himself from his parents and the world and provides him with a sense of worth, teaching him, as Spenser says himself, "what [he] knows" -- boxing, running, carpentering and standing up for something.

The end of the book always gets me. I've always been glad, too, that Paul makes further appearances in other books: Widening Gyre and Playmates, among others. It's interesting to see the relationship between Spenser and Paul grow and develop. It deepens Spenser as a character and gives us one more reason to like him.

I'm an avid Robert B. Parker fan---Spenser lives in my mind, and I enjoying adventuring with him. "Early Autumn" strikes me as one of Parker's most touching stories, focusing on the the intereactions of Spenser and a troubled teen, Paul Giacomin. Besides Spenser's unfailing wit, he throws out some great comments and admonitions about growing up. What makes Spenser's remarks even more satisfying is that in the discourse between Paul and Spenser, things are not neat and tidy. Life is not always fair, nor do we always control the awful events that sometimes hit us like a solid left hook. But Spenser also assures Paul that individuals can control many things in their own lives, and that's where our focus needs to be.

The world can be divided into two kinds: Those who love Susan Silverman, and those who hate her. I'm among the former, although I agree that Susan ain't easy. But as Robert B. Parker's Early Autumn, the seventh novel in his Spenser series, amply demonstates, if Susan was easy Spenser wouldn't love her as much as he does.

But that's backstory. The front story is pitiful little Paul Giacomin, whose mother Patti has hired Spenser to protect Paul from his father, Mel. Both of Paul's parents are guilty of grand theft childhood in the first degree, and the book is less about detecting crime than it is about rescuing a life yet to be lived, but it makes for riveting reading nonetheless. I love how to books, and here Spenser shows us how to save a child.

Robert B. Parker, Early Autumn (Dell, 1981)

It may still be a little too early in the game to call the Spenser novels some of the great twentieth-century detective fiction. There cannot, however, be any doubt as to the continuing popularity of, and loyalty to, the line of novels written by Robert Parker about the combination renaissance man/gumshoe. Over the twenty-odd years since The Godwulf Manuscript hit the shelves, Spenser fans have accumulated like mosquitoes in a light fixture. We've watched the characters, consistent over the space of more than twenty novels, grow and change, not just reflecting the spirit of the times (go back and read about some of the godawful getups Spenser dressed in in the mid-seventies, and you can easily imagine Spenser himself looking back and saying, "what WAS I thinking?") but reflecting real changes in the characters themselves. Robert Parker has
achieved something remarkable; he has given us a quarter century in the lives of a select few people in real-time (for the most part) without the storyline ever degenerating into soap opera.

Like all types of evolution/natural selection, though, it doesn't all go at a steady stream. Sometimes the changes in characters come in short, uneven spurts. Early Autumn is one of those, and while I can't swear to it, I suspect that this book has probably garnered more fans for the venerable franchise than any other. If there is a definitive Spenser novel, it is Early Autumn.

Spenser is hired by beautiful divorced socialite Patty Giacomin to recover her son Paul, who's been kidnapped by her ex-husband. Spenser finds the job remarkably easy, at least until the ex-husband sends muscle to try and get the kid back again a few months later. Somewhere along the line, Spenser realizes that neither parents cares about the boy, he's just a pawn in a game of spite-the-ex-partner. So Spenser does the only logical thing, takes the boy himself and tries to inject some logic into the chaotic mess of his life.

This novel is one of the rare places where everything comes together perfectly. The history that's been laid out before us in previous Spenser novels is obviously in play, but as in most of the books in the series, the history never overtakes the present storyline. It's there to draw on, though. Parker uses the situation to explore some of what's come before and foreshadow things that come later; we see the beginnings of the strain on Spenser's relationship with Susan that lead to the events a few years on, and we see the real beginnings of the loyalty that has developed between Spenser and Hawk over the past fifteen years (here, they're still hired guns on the opposite sides of a problem, but we also get the idea that Hawk's decisions are made with Spenser in mind). Parker is, of course, at his usual standard of writing, with the expected level of detective-novel wisecracking, lots of references to works of literature, a good deal of food talk, etc. There are few novels that satisfy the way this one does. *****

Robert Parker has done a great job of depicting Spenser's tough but funny personality, a character who made brilliant decisions for his actions taken in the book. The book is about a divorce between two parents, and a fight for their 15 year old son. The father hires thugs to kidnap his son, while the mother responds by hiring detective Spenser to get him back. Bringing the son back to the mother, Spenser finds that neither mother nor father care about being with their son Paul. Spenser then decides to take Paul under his own arms and starts showing him how to become a man and survive against his opponents, while trying to find a way so Paul's parents won't try to take him back. I think this book was a very good read, and I recommand it to any reader who likes any kind of suspense, drama, or action, because this book has all.

I've only recently discovered Robert Parker and I've been working my way thru his books, 15 of them so far. Early Autumn is the best yet. Very good reading.

This is one of my two favorite Spenser books (The other is A Savage Place.) Early Autumn was the first Parker book I ever read and also the first suspense/mystery. My parents and brothers all read Spenser but I shunned them, preferring scifi. I was desparate for a read one summer night and my mother pressed this on me, saying "You'll like this if you just give it a chance" I was 15 and I read it that night, reporting back to her bedroom and saying, "Next Book! More! More!"

This book is about Spenser's surrogate fathering of a lost 15 year old boy named Paul who is a pawn in his own life. It is sort of a coming of age novel, but really not because it is told from Spenser's perspective like all the Spenser books.

This is one of my favorite books of all time. I highly recommend it to any Spenser fan or to any one who remembers 15 and that lost in your own life feeling.

Spenser gets involved with a child custody case between Patty and Mel Giacomin. Paul is the 15-year-old kid, and his parents are using him in an adolescent tug-of-war game. Neither really cares much about Paul, and Paul has retreated into apathetic shrugs. When Spenser brings Paul back from Mel's, Patty doesn't really care and makes Spenser babysit Paul for the night because she's "busy". Off goes Spenser to read "A Distant Mirror" by Barbara Tuchman.

Spenser feels sorry for Paul and ends up a live-in bodyguard and fends off Buddy and another guy - at which point Paul starts to show some interest in life. Spenser tries to be a good role model for Paul. Becoming in essence a permanent babysitter while Patty "hides", Spenser teaches Paul how to build a cabin in Maine. Paul has a simple-fix-the-kid plan which involves teaching Paul to run, box and dress nicely and that suddenly the kid will gain control. Sure enough, it works, even though in real life the chance of success would have been nil. That's a pretty soap-opera solution to the difficult problems of adolescence.

Spenser and Susan comment that "It's early autumn for Paul" - that he has to grow up quickly to escape from his difficult parents. Spenser pretty much explains his entire philosophy of life and means of living to both Paul and to the reading audience. He has numerous literary quotes.

Hawk refuses a hit commission on Spenser for only 5K. Spenser and Susan, the "surrogate perfect parents", take Paul on trips to New York and Boston, and in the end Spenser blackmails Paul's parents so Paul can fulfill his secret dream to go off to Ballet school.

This book is the first attempt by Parker to really lay out what Spenser is all about - and Spenser does so with endless quotes and rambling dialogues to Paul. He can't do it with Susan - Susan is in a snit from the very beginning and pretty much snaps at Spenser every time she sees him. On the other hand, Susan is buddy-buddy with Hawk, which is strange because the last time they were in the same story together, Susan barely knew him.

Spenser has grown in many ways in this story. His moral code has been structured. His "readiness is all" attitude has been shaped. Where only a few stories ago he set men up to be killed, in this one he refuses to shoot a man even though he knows that man is a serious risk to him. He is, in essence, truly becoming "Spenser".

I am a big fan of Parker's writing and of the Spenser books in particular, so I would be hard pressed to pick a favorite of his, but Early Autumn would certainly be right up there. At once it combines all the elements of Spenser's hard-boiled detective universe with the coming-of-age of Paul, a regular character in subsequent Spenser novels. Handled with delicate realism and devoid of sappy sentimentality, Early Autumn is easily one of the most human of the Spenser stories. It is quick and light, and good for a weekend afternoon.

I read books as I get them. I have read many books about Spenser, I never counted the number before "Early Autumn" but I had encountered Paul Giacomin in several books and knew little about him. In fact I was often irritated by the way Spenser treated him, I thought it interrupted the flow of the book. Now I have read "Eaely Autumn" and my opinion has flip-flopped, I wish I had the time to reread the books in which Paul appears so I can use my new opinion of him and see what it does for the books.
As for the book itself, it portrays a new and different Spenser; he kills no one in this book and vents his feelings about killing, he does not want to do it unless his life or one of his loved ones is endangered and killing becomes necessary to him. Self-defense is a good reason, Harry Cotton is killed by Hawk to protect Spenser, Spenser can not do it himself. Spenser meets Paul's parents first, before meeting Paul himself, and is not impressed by them. He is hired by Paul's mother to find and return Paul to her, he has been kidnapped by his father. This job leads to further meetings with the mother, she throws herself at him and Spenser turns her down. Now his eyes are opened, he starts to have feelings for Paul and is concerned about him. As a result he takes Paul under his wing and tries to make a man of him, according to his own ideas. Fortunately for all us readers his idea of a man seems to be sound and he starts working it on Paul. To do so, he must break the family ties and supplant them with new ones. To do so he must find something in Patty Giacomin's life she wants hidden and similarly for Mel Giacomin. Spenser succeeds and he takes over the kid's education. The novel shows the change and Paul benefits greatly. Spenser is shown to make a fine dad and more of the book is taken up in the interaction between Paul and Spenser. I wanted Spenser to win, each reader must make up his own mind and see how the book appeals to him. I am sorry Parker died, now I would like to see more stories in which Paul appears.

tags spenser, paul giacomin, hawk, autonomy, body building