The Bradbury Chronicles (19 page)

Ray's Mars was beautifully impossible. His planet had an atmo-sphere, and it had blue hills. For the author, science was not the point. If his readers could believe in his stories, even if the science was flawed, then accuracy was simply unimportant. It was the metaphor that mattered. His Mars was at odds with the hard science fiction established by
Astounding
editor John W. Campbell. And this is why Ray Bradbury was always considered an outsider to purists in the field, a writer excluded from the big triumvirate of Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, and Arthur C. Clarke (although Ray
is
popularly considered one of the “ABCs of Science Fiction”:
A
simov,
B
radbury, and
C
larke). This never bothered Ray. In his mind, he was working on something much bigger: He was creating a myth.

Ray's Mars story was shaping up to be a human story, filled with human problems, populated by human themes, an allegory transplanted to another world. In creating his version of the Red Planet, he let his imagination run amok.

“[Bradbury] created moods with few words,” wrote Isaac Asimov in 1981. “He wasn't ashamed to tug on the heartstrings and there was a semipoetic nostalgia to most of those tugs. He created his own version of Mars straight out of the nineteenth century, totally ignoring the findings of the twentieth century.

“In fact, one gets the idea that Bradbury lives in the nineteenth century and in the small-town Midwest in which he grew up....”

As
The Martian Chronicles
neared completion, Maggie typed the final manuscript even as her due date was fast approaching. Ray worked on one typewriter in the garage at 670 South Venice, while Maggie retyped all of Ray's stories into a single manuscript on another typewriter in the apartment at 33 South Venice. They were an efficient team.

In early October 1949, Ray sent his completed manuscript to Walter Bradbury. The book consisted of eighteen stories and eleven bridge chapters. In all, the book ran a little long. A large part of his revision process entailed cutting, and Ray anticipated having to excise a few of the stories from the submitted manuscript.

As Walter Bradbury was reviewing
The Martian Chronicles,
the big day in the tiny Bradbury apartment finally arrived. “We didn't have a car,” recalled Maggie Bradbury, “so we had made arrangements with the people who lived in the apartment next door. They said, ‘When you're ready, come knock on our door and we'll take you to the hospital.'” On the fifth of November, just after midnight, they did just that. With his heart pounding, Ray rapped on his neighbors' door and the two couples raced to the Santa Monica Hospital. Maggie was in labor well into the morning while Ray, playing the expectant-father stereotype, paced the halls, sat restlessly on the hospital's front steps, and stole a few moments of sleep in the waiting room. At 9:38
A.M
., Maggie gave birth to a girl, whom they named Susan Marguerite Bradbury. The young parents were elated. Ray wrote August Derleth to share the news, humorously referencing one of his own stories about a murderous baby: “I am pleased to announce that we have a baby girl! … A very healthy, pink little girl, with siren lungs and improper manners. She does not, alas, resemble in any way, a Small Assassin.”

Ray and Maggie brought their little girl home, and with no space in their apartment for a crib, little Susan slept in her baby buggy. She was a colicky infant, and her fits of tears stirred Ray's memories of his own childhood, and his deep-seated fears of the dark. He worried that his girl would one day have the same nightmares. In response to this, just a week after Susan was born, Ray decided to write his first children's book,
Switch on the Night
. The eleven-page manuscript followed a young boy overcoming his fears of the night with the help of a girl named Dark. Ray's original manuscript was simply a storyboard, with the script of the story to the left and his own primitive illustrations and magazine cut-outs to the right.

Even though Ray had received a generous advance for two books from Doubleday, the family was still living without many luxuries. Ray applied for a Guggenheim Fellowship in November 1949, seeking and receiving the requisite recommendation letters from an impressive group. Writing on behalf of Ray were Martha Foley, series editor of
The Best American Short Stories of the Year
anthology; August Derleth, author and publisher of Ray's first book; Ray's friend the noted radio writer and director Norman Corwin; and respected author and University of California at Berkeley English professor Mark Schorer who had, as Ray remembered, struck up a recent correspondence with him.

But the Guggenheim Fellowship wasn't meant to be. Ray was turned down. He believed that once again, prejudice against his genre background had played a hand in the decision. Even with all of his appearances in high-brow literary magazines and in lauded literary anthologies, at the end of the day, Ray Bradbury was still considered a genre writer. He couldn't shed the label.

 

R
AY
was no longer using his “office” phone across the street at the filling station since the news of Maggie's pregnancy; they had a telephone line installed in their apartment. In December 1949, at the age of twenty-nine, Ray had his first long-distance conversation, discussing with Walter Bradbury what stories needed to be cut from the manuscript of
The Martian Chronicles
. It was determined that four chapters would be excised—“They All Had Grandfathers,” “The Disease,” “The Fathers,” and “The Wheel.” These stories remain to this day unpublished.

Ray had forged a close working relationship with Walter Bradbury and relied on him to help him see the proverbial forest through the trees. Throughout his career, Ray surrounded himself with a small and dependable inner circle that included his wife, Maggie; his agent, Don Congdon; various editors over the years; and a few friends. As Ray tightened up
The Martian Chronicles
for publication, he consulted closely with his editor to determine the proper flow to the stories. Walter Bradbury expressed concerns over two more tales in the book. The editor had reservations about “The Earth Men” and its importance to the overall architecture of the Mars story, as well as “Usher II.” Walter Bradbury felt the latter tale, about a man inspired by the works of Edgar Allan Poe who builds a second house of Usher on Mars, was a bit too fantastical. Ray agreed to rework “The Earth Men,” and convinced his editor to leave the other tale in the book as is.
The Martian Chronicles
was coming together on short order.

In early 1950, Norman Corwin invited Ray to a new program he had developed for United Nations Radio. As Ray took his seat in the front row, he noticed a couple moving into the row directly behind him. It was John Huston and his pregnant wife, Ricki. Ray was completely awestruck at the sight of Huston, his favorite director. Ray had seen both
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
and
The Maltese Falcon
numerous times. “He knew how to get actors to live inside the skin of their characters so you weren't watching actors acting, you were watching people living,” Ray said. “When a director can do this, you forget that you are looking at a motion picture.”

Ray was occasionally asked by his friends when he was going to write a screenplay. His response was always the same: “When John Huston asks me to.” It was a typically brassy Bradbury response, similar to telling his friends in 1939 that he would land a part in Laraine Day's theater group before he had even met the actress, and when, at the age of twelve, he proclaimed that he would get a job on air at radio station KGAR in Tucson, Arizona, and did. As Ray said, “I've known my destiny all along, haven't I?”

Sitting at the Corwin radio broadcast, it took all Ray's self-control not to turn around and confess his profound admiration for the Hollywood director. After the broadcast, Corwin invited Ray to join him and the Hustons at a Sunset Strip restaurant. In an unusual response, Ray declined the dinner invitation. “Well, it's one of those times in your life when you want to jump up, turn around, shake hands, and introduce yourself; but, at the time, I'd only had one book published, and I felt I should have had a few more published to be fully armed to meet Huston,” admitted Ray.

The Martian Chronicles
was scheduled for publication in May 1950, and Ray planned a trip to New York to mark the event and to visit his agent, Don Congdon, and his editor, Walter Bradbury. Maggie and Susan stayed behind in Los Angeles with Maggie's parents. He didn't take the bus this time, as there was enough money to travel by rail. On his way across country, Ray made a brief stop in Chicago to have lunch at the Art Institute with a science fiction fan with whom he had been corresponding. As Ray ascended the broad steps of the museum, a group of people rushed toward him. They were science fiction fans and they all clutched brand-new copies of
The Martian Chronicles
. The friend Ray was meeting had told them that the author was in town. And somehow—Ray never knew how—they had all obtained copies of his new book days before its official publication. On the steps of the Art Institute of Chicago, the group of young adults swarmed Ray, their hands reaching out in his direction, holding copies of books and pens. They all wanted Ray Bradbury's autograph.

The idea of a futuristic society where being an astronaut was a routine job, something as tedious as a long-distance truck driver was fascinating, psychedelicize this with some drug culture references and a little peripheral esoteric mumbo-jumbo and presto. My main goal, however, was to project a sense of the overwhelming loneliness space offers us; in this I think we succeeded.

—
BERNIE TAUPIN
,
lyricist for Elton John's “Rocket Man”

R
AY HAD
begun to lecture sporadically at colleges and universities in April 1948. After he received the O. Henry Memorial Award for his shorted story “Powerhouse,” the University of Southern California chapter of the Epsilon Phi English honorary fraternity invited Ray to speak. He soon learned that his public-speaking acumen mirrored that of his writing process. He quickly learned he should trust his instincts and neither overthink nor overprepare his lectures. “There were 150 people in a big auditorium. It was the biggest crowd I'd ever talked to. Of course, I prepared too much with notes, and I looked up in the middle of lecturing and saw that I put everyone to sleep,” confessed Ray. “So I yelled at them. I said, ‘Attention!' And I threw my lecture on the floor and jumped on it. And then I looked at them and said, ‘To continue!' From then on, I was free from the stupid manacles of lecturing.”

When Ray began to speak extemporaneously, to speak from his subconscious, he discovered that his real character shone. He was loud and effusive, a bit prone to hyperbole, but when he made an overstatement, it was from the heart. He recommended to all the young writers in the audience that they not slant their writing for publications but, rather, that they remain true to themselves. “If the story is good,” he said that night, “there will be a market for it.” With his lecture notes scattered like fallen leaves about the floor, Ray inspired the audience in a wicked amalgam of preacher at the pulpit, professor at the lectern, half-time coach in the locker room on the day of the big game. That night, Ray had discovered how to give a lecture, with passion and honesty.

More offers followed from colleges and universities throughout California. In 1949, he participated in a lecture series hosted by the English department at USC. One of the other guests on the program was English author and playwright Christopher Isherwood. Sometime in late spring of 1950, after Ray had returned from New York City, he was in a Santa Monica, California, bookshop when he recognized a familiar face: Christopher Isherwood.

As Ray was wont to do, he was in the shop on that fine spring day to see if it carried copies of his new book,
The Martian Chronicles
. When
Dark Carnival
had first come out, Ray often perused bookshop inventories. If the shop had the book in stock, he made certain the copies were at eye level to catch customer attention. “They would often have my books low on the shelf and I would take them out and put them on top,” said Ray, chuckling. “Then, when I left, they'd take my books and put them down below again.”

After spotting Isherwood, Ray grabbed a copy of
The Martian Chronicles,
autographed it, and rushed up to him. Isherwood, a quiet and elegant man, had been through the routine before—a respected author being bushwhacked by an earnest young writer pushing his hack novel. A “not again” look washed across Isherwood's face. Ray handed him the book, told Isherwood who he was, and said, “I hope you like it.” Ray had a suspicion that Isherwood, like so many literary intellectuals, was prejudiced against science fiction, but Isherwood was gracious. He thanked Ray, and the two men parted.

A few days later, the telephone rang at 33 South Venice Boulevard. It was Christopher Isherwood calling.

“Do you know what you've done?” he asked Ray.

“What?” Ray asked.

“You've written a fine book.”

Isherwood had just been named to a new post as a critic for
Tomorrow
magazine, and he gleefully told Ray Bradbury that the first book he'd like to review was
The Martian Chronicles
. The issue would run later that year, in the autumn. It was a resounding seal of approval from a respected intellectual, and it would mark the beginning of a friendship between the two. They were an unlikely pair: a well-regarded aesthete and a young teller of tales who had made a name for himself in, of all places, the pages of
Weird Tales
.

Neva Bradbury, now living in Seattle, Washington, wrote Ray on August 21, 1950, after reading
The Martian Chronicles:
“My nephew—you awe me. I read you and my great feeling of pride detracts from the story, I am so aware of it—and I must read and re-read portions over and over. At times I have cried, not from the sadness of the story, but because I am so proud of you. I think, perhaps, my dear, that you may live as one of our great writers, in the future.”

 

S
HORTLY AFTER
Ray had signed his contract for the two books with Doubleday in 1949, the book to follow
The Martian Chronicles
changed in scope. While the initial intention had been to take Ray's short story “The Creatures That Time Forgot” (later retitled and published as “Frost and Fire”) and turn it into a short, fifty-thousand-word novel, this idea was quickly scrapped. As a writer who preferred creating in quick spurts of inspiration, Ray was hesitant to take on the longer novel form. He forever maintained that the initial first-draft writing process was reliant on gut instinct rather than on intellectual thought. “In quickness is truth,” he wrote in the 1987 essay “Run Fast, Stand Still, or The Thing at the Top of the Stairs, or New Ghosts from Old Minds.” “The faster you blurt,” Ray continued, “the more swiftly you write, the more honest you are. In hesitation is thought. In delay comes the effort for a style, instead of leaping upon truth which is the only style worth deadfalling or tiger-trapping.”

The novel form was a much different beast from the short story. While Ray very often wrote first drafts of short stories in a matter of hours, novels took months, even years to complete. And so, the ever-agreeable Walter Bradbury allowed Ray to alter his contract and to submit a collection of science fiction short stories instead of the novel. Walter Bradbury was delighted by
The Martian Chronicles
and wanted to keep his young author happy. The due date for the manuscript of the new book was February 1950; Ray asked for and received a six-month extension.
The Martian Chronicles
had been released in May, and his new book was now due in August.

Ray was more than contented with Doubleday, and had fostered a trusting and comfortable working relationship with his editor, yet there was one aspect of this new partnership with the New York publishing firm that troubled him: the dreaded label.
The Martian Chronicles
had been released as part of Doubleday's new science fiction line; on its cover was emblazoned the colophon “Doubleday Science Fiction.” Ray didn't like it. While he had loved the genre since childhood, and he felt that it was the best form a writer could use to act as social critic, he also recognized that the genre was stigmatized. Ray feared his new book would be prejudged and pigeonholed. Snobbery could prevent his work from ever receiving the attention it deserved.

Ray continued to work in the garage at his parents' house, while Maggie cared for Susan in the cracker-box apartment by the sea. The new collection,
The Illustrated Man,
was shaping up, comprising largely the stories that Ray had been writing and publishing since the publication of
Dark Carnival
. Fourteen of the eighteen short stories that would ultimately make up the new book were published in either pulp magazines, literary journals, or mainstream magazines between 1947 and 1950. Don Congdon and Ray pushed hard to sell the stories prior to the book's publication, as the magazines didn't pay as much for second serial (post-book) rights.

Since finishing
Dark Carnival,
Ray had continued to produce a short story a week and had quickly amassed an impressive stockpile of science fiction stories to choose from. Early on in the assembly of his new collection, he had determined to use stories such as “The Veldt,” “Kaleidoscope,” “The Rocket Man,” “The Other Foot,” “The Highway,” among others. He was also seriously considering the inclusion of the longer novellas “Pillar of Fire,” “The Creatures That Time Forgot,” and “The Fire Man.” It is this last tale that would soon be expanded into
Fahrenheit 451
. But Walter Bradbury warned Ray against using these tales. “I think it's better to keep the stories down to more or less uniform length,” he suggested.

As Ray rapidly assembled stories for
The Illustrated Man,
he was writing other remarkable tales that didn't fit the science fiction motif of his new book. One such story was “The Fog Horn.” It is one of Ray Bradbury's most well-known and beloved short stories, born on a night when Ray and Maggie were strolling along the beach not far from their apartment. Ray was fond of telling the origins behind “The Fog Horn,” because it clearly answered the one question he was asked most often over the years: Where do you get your ideas?

Venice, California, once a proud tourist destination—a kitschy fusion of Coney Island amusement and ersatz Italian street scene—was in complete disrepair. In 1946, the City of Los Angeles opted out of its lease with the owner of the Venice pier, choosing to let the beachfront return to its original sun, sand, and surf incarnation; the days of the penny arcades and thrill rides were over. The old Venice pier was torn down, leaving the structural remnants strewn and scattered amidst drifting sand and the slow-rolling waves of the Pacific.

“I was walking with Maggie one night on the beach as the fog rolled in,” recalled Ray, “and looked out and saw the old roller coaster lying over on its side with its bones in the sand and the water, and the wind blowing over its skeleton. I looked at it and said to Maggie, ‘I wonder what that dinosaur is doing lying on the beach.'”

A few nights later, Ray woke in the middle of the night and heard the sad bellow of a foghorn far out in Santa Monica Bay. As he sat up in bed in the pale blue moonlight, it suddenly dawned on him. “I had the answer,” Ray said. “The dinosaur, hearing the foghorn blowing and thinking it was another dinosaur after it had waited for a million years or more, came swimming into the bay and when he found out it was only a lighthouse and a foghorn calling, he died on the shore of a broken heart. That's why the dinosaur came in and is lying on the sand there.”

Once he had the idea, Ray wrote “The Fog Horn” in short order. But it wasn't a good fit for his forthcoming book of far-traveling, socially conscious science fiction, so he held on to it for inclusion in the later collection, 1953's
The Golden Apples of the Sun
.

Just as
The Martian Chronicles
had shown a considerable growth spurt both stylistically and thematically from the stories in
Dark Carnival,
the tales Ray selected for
The Illustrated Man
were top-shelf Bradbury. The language was poetic, the stories steeped in metaphor, the themes transcendent. While the stories he had assembled for this new book were all tales of the far-fantastic—science fiction fairy tales that displayed a soaring imagination—Ray was again addressing contemporary social and political issues about which he cared deeply in 1950: civil rights, the threat of atomic war, the misuse of technology. Yet while the themes were relevant for 1950, the continuing relevance of
The Illustrated Man
shows that, as with
The Martian Chronicles,
Ray Bradbury had struck a chord among readers; his tales spoke to the common American popular culture experience.

In “The Veldt,” a husband and wife pamper their children by giving them a state-of-the-art nursery, where dreams and fantasies come alive on the crystal walls, floor, and ceiling of an automated playroom-cum-television of tomorrow. When the children become dependent on the new technology, the parents endeavor to wean them from it. But the children aren't so willing to let go. “The Veldt,” written at the dawn of the television age, was at once dark and tragic, while at the same time a satirical commentary on the potentially dangerous power of TV and parents who use it as a babysitter. Ironically in “The Veldt,” Ray, often lambasted by science fiction purists for inaccurate technology, had envisioned what would ultimately become virtual reality.

In “Kaleidoscope,” a rocket explodes in deep space, catapulting its crew out of the destroyed vessel and off into the void. As the astronauts drift apart in the vacuum of outer space, they continue to communicate with each other over their spacesuit radios, each man coming to terms with his own fate.

In “The Other Foot,” African Americans have colonized Mars. After the Earth is destroyed by atomic war, a small number of white survivors arrive by rocket on the Red Planet, and the colonists must decide what to do with the newcomers. In this science-fictional tale of role reversal, Ray asks if centuries of racial intolerance, injustice, and hatred continue to persist in a new planetary milieu.