Nixon: The Education of a Politician 1913-1962 by Stephen Ambrose

Nixon: The Education of a Politician 1913-1962 by Stephen Ambrose
Copyright 1987

This first volume in a three volume biography chronicles the early years of Richard Nixon’s life through his unlikely and lackluster campaign for California Governor in 1962.

What emerges from Nixon’s early life is how much he loved his parents and siblings. He idolized his oldest brother, Harold who died of tuberculosis when Nixon was a pre-teen. Harold was known as a fun-loving prankster – just the opposite of the taciturn Dick. When he died, family friends said young Dick felt as if he had to be twice the son to help assuage his parents’ grief. When a younger brother died of tuberculosis, Nixon redoubled his efforts to be a good son.

Young Nixon was very much like the old Nixon (there was always a “new Dick”). He was serious, motivated, and competitive. He was a gifted and precocious debater who took his schoolwork seriously. In college, he excelled in his studies and road the bench for Whittier College’s football team.

At Duke law school, Nixon got a taste of real poverty. The Nixons were middle-class, but they had known tough times. While at Duke, Nixon lived in what amounted to a tool shed. As one might imagine, Nixon ranked high in his law school class.

Nixon practiced some “little ball” law in Whittier before joining the Navy during World War II. He was a commissioned officer and given command of a supply depot in Bouganville. One would not expect the nerdy and physically awkward Nixon to command the respect the blue-collar toughs that worked for him, but they developed a strong respect for the guy and liked him. He was never “one of the guys”, but neither was he a snob or a recluse. He developed a knack for the game of poker.

Upon his return from the Pacific, he was drafted by a committee of local Republicans to run for Congress against Democrat Jerry Voorhis. He had found his calling.

The campaigns against him and Senator Helen Douglas were run ruthlessly. Few had ever doubted Nixon’s character as a young man. Many in California came to doubt it after these two campaigns. Nixon was brutal -- resorting to questioning their loyalty as Americans. One of the contributors to his campaign against Douglas was none other than Joe Kennedy – with the check delivered to Nixon’s senate office by young JFK himself.

Nixon’s rise to fame is documented well in Ambrose’s biography. The key event in his rise was his dogged pursuit of Communist Alger Hiss. His investigation into the corrupt state department official launched him to national fame. Nixon was shrewder and more calculating than Joseph McCarthy who was as dumb as he was reckless. Nixon also had the good taste to be correct in his allegations.

His dogged pursuit of commies while in the senate attracted the attention of the Eisenhower campaign, who had offended party regulars by “stealing” the Republican nomination from party stalwart Bob Taft. Nixon was a party regular, had strong anti-commie credentials, provided geographical balance to Ike’s Heartland origins, and was a deft campaigner. Nixon rode Ike’s short list of VP nominees all the way to the convention that nominated him for the number two spot on the ticket.

Ike remained above barnstorming campaigning. That was Nixon’s duty. Nixon crisscrossed the country, bashing Democrats for supporting socialistic policies and leading the nation down the path of communism. While Ike’s inner circle had reservations about Nixon’s tactics and statements, they could not argue with his results. Ike could have got elected with anybody as his running mate. But to have credibility with party regulars (who give the most money), Ike needed Dick. He also needed Dick to help him with Congress (which Ike did not understand) and with the profession of politics (which Ike loathed).

Ambrose is also an Eisenhower biographer and details the complex relationship Ike had with Nixon. He liked Nixon, but was never close to him. He respected Nixon’s sharp intellect, grasp of foreign affairs, and unsurpassed political skills. But yet, he was reluctant to give Nixon any affirmation. He tried to talk Nixon off the ticket and into the cabinet before the 1956 election. He refused to endorse him in 1960 until late in the campaign and badly embarrassed him with a glib remark.

Meanwhile, Nixon disagreed with many of Ike’s policies. Chief among these policy disagreements was Vietnam. Nixon and CIA director John Foster Dulles were anxious to aid the French in their fight against the Vietminh. They saw it as a proxy war against communism and were eager to engage the Reds. Ike was less inclined to enter America in another war.

Nixon also sought affirmation from Ike – affirmation he seldom got. Nixon, like everyone who knew him, held Ike in the deepest regard and respect. Ike was a great war hero and the Commander in Chief – a position Nixon had coveted since his days in Congress.

Ambrose characterizes the campaign between Nixon and Kennedy in 1960 as brutal. Ambrose made that characterization before the campaigns of 2000 and 2004. The modern election that most resembles the 1960 campaign was the 1996 campaign between Bill Clinton and Bob Dole. Like Clinton and Dole, the candidates genuinely liked each other. They had come into Congress together and served in the Senate together. They had shared a berth on a train as they barnstormed the country debating the contentious Taft-Hartley Act.

Kennedy attacked Nixon on being soft on Communist leader Fidel Castro. Nixon had to tow the Ike line because Ike was secretly planning the invasion of Cuba. Nixon, as Vice President, did not want to make strong anti-Castro statements that could be attributed to administration officials. This hurt Nixon.

Nixon made a tactical error by promising to campaign in all 50 states. In the final days of the campaign when Nixon should have been hitting swing states, he was in remote locations making good on that promise.

He was also felled by phlebitis during the campaign. This put him in the hospital for several days and physically hampered him through the final weeks of the campaign. Perhaps telling of the mutual respect in politics that is gone now, Senate Majority Leader and Kennedy running mate Lyndon Johnson, stopped by the hospital and visited with Nixon while he convalesced.

Ultimately, the election would be one of the closest one in history with just 100,000 votes separating the two candidates.

Nixon had strong evidence of a stolen election in Texas and Illinois. Ambrose mentions this, but sadly, does not analyze it enough. Nixon’s case was strong and he could have mounted a challenge to the Kennedy victory. But he did not want Ike to order a Justice Department investigation. He wanted to maintain the peaceful and smooth transition in power that has always been the case in the United States. He was the patriot that Al Gore never could be and John Kerry could only aspire to be. Nixon gave up his aspirations of power for the good of his country.

Nixon would return to California to run for governor in 1962. But his heart was not in it. He did not want to be governor and he knew it before he ran. His “last press conference,” where he told the press that they would “not have Nixon to kick around anymore,” is described in great detail.

The book leaves off as Nixon would enter what he would call “his time in the wilderness” nearly stealing fame for the phrase from Winston Churchill.

Pat Nixon’s life is wedded nicely into this Nixon biography. She was an intelligent and insightful woman – far from the “Plastic Pat” that her detractors portrayed. She, like almost all women of her generation – stood behind her husband quietly. She was a doting mother who dedicated her public life to assuring her children had something akin to a normal life.

The Nixon marriage always seemed devoid of passion – or even genuinely caring. Nixon rarely put his arm around her in public, seldom danced with her in public, and never kissed her in public. He seldom acknowledged her in public. Yet she was fearlessly and faultlessly loyal to him and genuinely loved him. Those who knew him well (and few did) never questioned his love for her. By all accounts, Richard Nixon was a perfect husband.

Nixon gets high marks as a father too. The greatest testament to one’s parenting skills is the affection returned by their children. Many bad homes produce “good” children. Few bad homes produce affectionate children. Nixon’s daughters, Tricia and Julie adored him as children, as teens, and as adults. No one ever questioned Dick Nixon the parent. He probably ranks highest among presidential parents for his parenting.

Ambrose did not write this book as a Nixon admirer. He is up front about that. He never voted for Nixon. But he is fair to this most controversial of politicians – lauding his intellect, compassion in civil rights, and patriotism. He seldom is directly critical. Rather, he leads the reader there and leaves little room for the reader to disagree.

Ambrose was not only a brilliant and insightful historian, he was a gifted writer in the same league as (although not quite as good) as David McCullough. He did not deserve the petty accusations of plagiarism that haunted his final days. Fortunately for those who truly appreciate this man’s contribution to our body of knowledge of our nation’s presidents, Ambrose will always be one of the icons.

Sturgeon is Alive and Well by Theodore Sturgeon

Sturgeon is Alive and Well
By Theodore Sturgeon
Copyright 1971

Theodore Sturgeon was a writer of science fiction in what is known as its Golden Age, or the era before, during, and following World War II. His contemporaries include Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Robert Bloch, and A.E. Van Vogt. Although he only wrote a few television scripts, older members of Generation X will remember his work on Star Trek, having penned the episodes “Shore Leave” which is an acceptable if not memorable episode and “Amok Time” which is a much more powerful and well known episode. He is the creator of Star Trek’s famous ”Prime Directive” that was integral to many episodes and spin off shows that followed. He died in 1985.

To Here and the Easel

A blocked painter conjures up in his mind an alternative world where he is held prisoner by an evil magician. In that world, he must escape the clutches of the magician and save a princess. In this world, the blank canvass torments him, so he uses money to exercise some sort of influence within the prime material plane. A female interloper tells him to rediscover his talent, he must find out why he paints.

This was actually published as a short novel in an anthology of short novels published by Frederick Pohl in 1954 entitled Star Short Novels. The story very much reminds me of Lovecraft in the use of the imagery that Lovecraft was so wont to borrow from Lord Dunsany. These were not my favorite Lovecraft stories, but Sturgeon makes judicious use of that imagery in crafting his alternative world. The artist’s flaunting of his bizarre behavior in our world is also entertaining. The end of the story, however, I think is a bit of a cheat since the reader wasn’t given any of the clues necessary to anticipate the twist.

Slow Sculpture

A woman afflicted with breast cancer goes to an unconventional healer who injects her with a mysterious drug and tells her unquestioned faith is needed for the drug to work. As she strengthens her resolve and her faith, she helps the healer delve deep into the nature of his mental affliction to help him excise the “disease” that afflicts him.

This is much more character study than story. But the characters are developed through interaction and dialogue with each other rather than constant introspection. I tend to look more for a plot driven story when reading short fiction, but Sturgeon’s approach to developing the loan characters of his story makes it engaging.

It’s You

A single man finds the woman of his dreams hitchhiking outside a gas station. Within days, he’s moved in with her. Within weeks, he’s given up his old friends and habits. Within months, he’s given up his profession for a more mundane profession, all at her gentle urging.

This one read like an hour long television drama. It contained not an element of sci-fi or fantasy. Just like the previous story, this story was purely a character study and the study of the give and take of relationships and the problems when one gives more than the other. I am usually disappointed when I find a piece of “mainstream” fiction folded between my usual genre fare, but I wasn’t disappointed in this story.

I also enjoyed Sturgeon’s informal style of writing here. The narrative lapses from independent narrative to first person narrative and, on occasions, into second person narrative which all our high school creative writing teachers told us to eschew. The greats know how and when to thumb their noses at the comp teachers and stray from the rigid tenants of structured writing. To do so is to dare greatly for there is a reason our instructors warned us away from the non-conventions: they are exceptionally difficult to do well and fail horribly when their done less than perfectly.

Take Care of Joey

A mildly deranged man arrives in a local bar and starts problems with the patrons. His “caretaker” is summoned to retrieve him. A curious patron walks home with the “caretaker” and learns his odd, but compelling reason for making sure that Joey stays out of harm’s way.

This is a classic story of irony. Well told with a climax that is difficult to predict.

Crate

A spaceship carrying a probation officer and her charges crashes on a remote planet that they were to settle and be reformed. The probation officer is hurt badly. She gives each of them private instructions and tells them they must carry a crate to a nearby settlement if they are to survive. The kids learn about themselves and each other as they carry their burden and carry out the final wishes of their ward.

The sci-fi setting is tertiary to the story. It could have been set in an American desert and accomplished the same thing. While the story was completely different, the character development made me recall Lord of the Flies.

The Girl Who Knew What They Meant

A man marked for death by the mob holds up in a low rent motel. No matter where he hides, the mobsters find him, call him, and tell him the precise date and time his death will occur. He meets a woman with whom he falls in love and she changes his destiny.

I don’t know if the woman in the story was incredibly intuitive, or if she had some supernatural power. She is well written while his character is the barest essence of development. The formula works and this is a great story.

Jorry’s Gap

A willful teenager defies his parents and leaves the house for the evening to hang out with his friends. We learn his mother’s perception of his friends through her admonishments and his perception of his friends through his thoughts as he cruises the town looking for them. Through their actions, he learns that perhaps, sometimes, parents do know something.

This was perhaps the weakest story in the book. It has no major flaws. But it’s message is not veiled or disguised in any way. The characters are also bit like caricatures.

It Was Nothing – Really!

A scientist emerges from the bathroom, his pants about his ankles and toilet paper in his hand. He demands that his secretary come immediately to his office and take a memo. That memo becomes the object of desire of the government who will stop at nothing to learn its contents.

This story contains a note of dark humor and overflows with keen observation about the nature of the cosmos. The greatest scientific revelations lie in the simplest of things.

Brownshoes

A brilliant scientist develops physics’ Holy Grail – the perpetual motion machine. Convinced that its applications will create Heaven on earth, he makes his discovery public. Only, the governments of several countries and the captains of many industries will stop at nothing to prevent its commercial development.

This story is incredibly average. The economic and social upheaval of the mythical perpetual motion machine have been plumbed in other works. However, the interaction between the hero, Mensch and his wife, Fauna, make the story interesting enough to read.

Uncle Fremmis

Uncle Fremmis is a man with a knack for making things work. But he can’t fix anything except dinner. He also has a way of making people “work” more efficiently. His nephew relates Fremmis’ tale of how he got that way and the man behind it who wields incredible power for good.

Electrical and mechanical altering of conscience is pervasive in science fiction. This is a worthwhile take on that premise. The narrative voice is well written and makes the story an easy read.


The Patterns of Dome

A soldier has been planning a political assassination since he was a teenager, painstakingly planning every detail and conducting a decade long charade. However, when he goes to carry it out, his plan is thwarted. Those who thwart his attempt are convinced the only way to bring down a despot is to make him immortal.

Best story in the book! Great story with intrigue and irony! It also contains some real sci-fi content, which is unusual for this book.

Suicide

A man decides to end it all by jumping off a cliff. But, when he lands alive, but badly wounded, he struggles to survive. Why?

This was an interesting, albeit brief character study. Just a little more background on what brought the man to the cliff would have given us some insight into why he was there.

Book to Movie: Stephen King's IT (1990)

Book to Movie: Stephen King's IT (1990)
Screenplay by Lawrence Cohen
Directed by Tommy Lee Wallace
Based on the novel, IT, by Stephen King

In 1990, ABC television kicked off what would become a small industry of making Stephen King books and short stories into two-part television mini-series. IT was first. It would be followed by The Tommyknockers, Sometimes They Come Back, The Stand, Golden Years, The Langoliers, and a remake of The Shining. They were of varying quality, but IT ranks near the top in terms of story and production value.

The adult cast reads like a who’s who of the 1970s and 1980s. Richard Thomas of The Waltons fame is cast as the grown up Bill Denbrough. The late John Ritter as Ben Mears, Harry Anderson of Night Court as Riche Tozier, Annette O’Toole as Beverly Marsh, Richard Masur from One Day at a Time as Stanley Uris, Tim Reid who played Venus Flytrap on WKRP in Cincinnati as Mike Hanlon, and character actor Dennis Christopher as Eddie Kaspbrak.

The child cast is a little less prolific with one exception. Voice talent Seth Green – most noted for playing Chris Gordon in The Family Guy, plays 12 year old Richie Tozier. Seems they got a kid who can do voices to play a kid who does voices. He was also well known in the early 1990s as the fast food worker who danced and yelled “Cha-ching!” in a Rally’s fast food commercial.

Rounding out the child cast is the late Jonathan Brandis of Seaquest 2032 fame who committed suicide in 2003. Brandon Crane played a young Ben Hanscomb. He would go on to play a recurring role in the Wonder Years. Adam Faraizl played young Eddie Kaspbrak. Faraizl had just limited television roles between 1985 and 1992. Ben Heller’s only acting gig was to play 12 year old Stanley Uris. Emily Perkins who played Farrah Fawcett’s daughter in The Burning Bed plays adolescent Beverly Marsh, and the obscure Marlon Taylor played young Mike Hanlon.

The star of the cast, by far, is Tim Curry who steals the show as Pennywise the Dancing Clown. Curry’s versatility as an actor is well documented and he is able, with the help of superb makeup and costumes, bring to life the most evil clown in the history of the little screen.

The story unfolds differently than the book. In the book, the two time periods are told almost side by side, with first person narrated flashbacks followed by chapters of current events. This allows the plots to unfold simultaneously. In the television mini-series, the calls are made to each character in the present tense, but the episode is dominated by the childhood battle with Henry Bowers and It. It culminates with the battle with it in the sewers of 1958.

The second episode focuses almost entirely of the adults coming to terms with their mission and carrying it out.

Tim Curry is so over the top with his performance as Pennywise that I thought it was one of the rare instances where the true essence of King’s monster was accurately and fully portrayed. Dare I compare it to Jack Nicholson in The Shining? Of all of King’s characters to grace a screen, Tim Curry’s Pennywise is my favorite.

The first half of the miniseries is much more enjoyable to watch. For all of their credits, the adult cast didn’t have the same chemistry as the kids did. The kids portrayed terror, fear, affection, disappointment, and fun well. The adults turned in a performance marked with a lot of over-acting.

There are many minor variances from the actual text. They serve, for the most part, to improve the viewing of the story on television. The encounters in the house on Neibolt St. are hinted at and referenced, but not developed. The first encounters each child has with It is rewritten as well. All but gone from the television version is Beverly’s abusive husband, Al Marsh. In the book, he becomes It’s tool as it is he who kidnaps Bill Denbrough’s wife and delivers her to It in the sewers. In the movie, he has the small bedroom scene where Beverly clouts him with the cold cream jar. It himself snatches Audra Denbrough.

Like The Stand, which is supposed to climax in a scene to large in its scope to be portrayed, It falls short. In the book, It assumes the form of a giant spider because this is what the children’s mind can fathom. IT is beyond comprehension. Bill and Richie do get an up close and personal view of It in its true form. In the movie, we are limited to a giant spider. The special effects are done as well as possible, but we never get that feeling that this creature is The Eater of Worlds. Ah, the limitations of the visual medium. . .

The only real character amalgamation is that of Eddie’s mother and wife. In the book, Eddie is married to a woman who is very much like his mother, but a different person nonetheless. In the movie, he still lives with his mother even though he is in his thirties and financially successful. It is a minor point.

Screenwriter Lawrence Cohen should be credited for writing a strong screen play that really portrayed the book well. He rewrote what he had to of King’s long narrative to make it work for television, but altered none of the characters and made no ham-handed plot adjustments. The result was a truly enjoyable television mini-series.

That Cohen could pull this off is no surprise for he has a great deal of experience in working with King material. He wrote the screenplay for Carrie which is one of the better movies made from a King book. It is vastly different from the book in its telling, but the story essence is the same. He also wrote screenplays from King works The Tommyknockers which was an ok movie from an ok book, and The End of the Whole Mess which was for the TNT network series Nightmares and Dreamscapes based on short stories from the eponymous book and from Everything’s Eventual. He also adapted Peter Straub’s best novel, Ghost Story, into a decent motion picture.

Combine one of King’s finest works with a strong script, strong directing from horror director Tommy Lee Wallace, and a stellar cast of unknown kids and you come up with perhaps the best of King on television.

It by Stephen King

It by Stephen King
Copyright 1986
1135 pages

I just completed reading this book for perhaps the fifth or sixth time. Other than The Stand, it is the lengthiest of King’s books and ranks just behind The Stand as one of my favorites.

Something sinister lies beneath the Maine town of Derry. Something that rises once every 27 years and gorges on slaughter and fear. Seven misfit children of 1958 are determined to make it stop and almost succeed. Those same children – now adults of 1985 – keep the blood oath they made 27 years prior and return to finish the job.

The mayhem that begins in 1957 starts with the murder of six year old George Denbrough who merrily chases after a paper boat swept on the currents of a storm sewer following a rain storm. Georgie chases his boat until it falls into a storm sewer. Whilst staring down this sewer, Georgie encounters a clown holding balloons – balloons that float. As little Georgie’s arm is pulled from his body like the wing from a fly, the carnage starts. Soon, kids begin disappearing from Derry at an alarming rate.

The local constabulary seems less concerned than it ought. For that matter, while parents keep their children closer, the level of juvenile carnage in Derry fails to rouse much alarm in the town or anywhere else in the world.

Drawn together are seven misfit children. Their leader, Georgie’s brother Bill, has a horrible stuttering problem. Ben Hanscomb is morbidly obese. Eddie Kaspbrak is a psychosomatic asthmatic. Mike Hanlon is one of few black kids in town. Richie Tozier is a mouthy would-be comic who doesn’t have the brawn to back up his taunts. Stan Uris is a consummate bird watcher and Boy Scout. Beverly Marsh – the lone girl of the group – is a budding adolescent with an abusive father.

Each of these kids has his own encounter with It from which they narrowly escape. One by one, they are drawn together by their survival of the encounters and the need to be in groups to avoid being killed by the entity which haunts Derry. They also stay together to avoid bully Henry Bowers and his street tough friends who harbor a grudge against each member of “The Losers’ Club.”

Each has his own power, they realize. But they come to learn as events of that summer of 1958 unfold, that together, they are a special group, much like Roland’s Ka-Tet in The Dark Tower. Bill Denbrough, bent on revenge for the murder of his brother, vows to kill it. Each promises to help.

Late that summer, they are forced into the sewers as Bowers and his buddies pursue them. There, they encounter not the sinister, but enticing clown that has drawn so many kids to their deaths, but the real It – or the It that their young minds can conceive. They battle it and hurt it badly, sending it fleeing into the depths of the earth.

They emerge from the sewers and strike an oath through a carnal act and a blood pact to return to Derry and finish the job should It ever emerge again.

After their deed is done, the Losers’ Club drifts apart emotionally. Adulthood and adult pastimes sweep them all over the globe. But It survives under Derry, wounded but waiting for the next cycle of blood letting.

Left behind in Derry is Mike Hanlon who assumes a vocation as the town librarian and the job of being the watchman, looking for signs of It’s return. When the murders start again in 1985, he summons them, one by one, to return to Derry to finish It off.

The Losers are losers no more. Bill Denbrough is one of the world’s most prolific horror writers, married to a beautiful actress. Beverly is a fashion designer of some renown. Eddie forms a limo service that serves the glitterati of New York. Ben Hanscomb sheds the baby fat of his youth and emerges as one of the world’s most influential architects. Richie Tozier takes his mouth and makes millions as Los Angeles’ highest rated radio personality. Stan Uris is one of Atlanta’s most successful accountants. Only Mike Hanlon, the man that stayed behind, leads an obscure life.

Each immediately puts his life on hold when the calls come from Hanlon. They have forgotten It. They have forgotten the events of that summer. They have forgotten Derry until Mike summons them. For one, however, the terror of returning is too much and he takes his own life. But his role was fulfilled in 1958, so his part is done.

They come back to do battle with It one final time. They must recapture the fanciful and unquestioned beliefs of youth. They must recapture their innocence. For it is that belief in the simple joys and horrors of youth upon which they must rely to return to that land beneath the sewers – another world of expansive darkness where It reigns – and hand It Its final defeat.

After having read this expansive, epic novel so many times, what still strikes me is King’s ability to make a town into a character in his novels. I noted this in my review of 'Salem's Lot, but King kicks it into overdrive in building Derry. Derry, Maine is more than just a middle-sized town. Derry the city is a sinister place and its inhabitants have evolved into compliant bystanders of the horror that grasps it nearly every quarter century.

I am reminded of Ray Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine and its sequels, Something Wicked This Way Comes and Farewell Summer. Bradbury’s semi-autobiographical trilogy of growing up in Waukegan, Illinois captures the culture, the zeitgeist, and the essence of the simplistic innocence of youth and growing up in the 1920s. Bradbury spins three wonderful tales of youthful whimsy set in a dark setting. King does that with Derry as well.

There’s nothing to suggest that any of King’s narrative in IT is autobiographical. However, he writes an account of 1958 in only a way that someone who grew up and experienced those days as a youngster, unbothered and unaffected by the drama of the day embodied in such events as the Cold War, Sputnik, and the space race. In doing this, King, like Bradbury transcends writing simple horror to penning a story of Baby Boomer Americana.

King develops the character of Derry through the writings of Mike Hanlon who, as It’s watcher and chronicler, researches Derry’s history and the cycle of terror. In between chapters that recount events of 1958 and 1985, are interludes where we read from Hanlon’s diary. He recounts mass murder, disaster, and violence dating back to Derry’s colonial days. We come to know that Derry’s residents are unwilling pawns in It’s need to feed in a 27 year cycle.

While the narrative captures the zeitgeist of half a century before, the story is pure horror and ranks as one of King’s most horrific.

The concept of a clown serving as an instrument of terror is not new. Bradbury used a carnival in Something Wicked This Way Comes. But Pennywise, The Dancing Clown is perhaps King’s most menacing monster. He is a shape changer and appears in many guises other than a clown. He is the wolfman from “I Was a Teenage Werewolf.” He is a syphilis infected bum. He is a spider. He is a shark. And in his true form, something beyond the human mind’s ability to fathom.

The accounts of the descent into the sewers and beyond is told in a parallel narrative as the book draws to a climax. As noted, in 1958, the Losers were driven into the sewers before they were ready when Bowers, now devolved beyond bully and tormenter into It’s instrument of bloodlust, pursues them through The Barrens – a wooded area along the river – into the sewers. In 1985, it’s Bowers again, now escaped from the insane asylum he was imprisoned in after the 1958 murders were pinned on him. Bowers attacks them as they prepare for sleep after having returned to Derry and forces them once again to flee toward It before they are ready.

The world of IT certainly exists inside the Dark Tower. We come to find that It is not alone in his subterranean lair. With him is a somnolent turtle who, according to It, vomited up the universe, then fell into a drowse. The Turtle is good and awakens briefly as the kids enter the sewer and offers just a bit of crucial advice.

It is the Eater of Worlds. It’s existence predates the dawn of time and will go beyond its end. It, in It’s own mind, is immortal and indestructible. It inhabits a world, while geographically is hundreds of feet beneath our own, is its own plane of existence. This is beyond the comprehension of adults whose mind has been trained to rationalize everything they see. To a kid who still fears to tread across the bridge for fear of the troll who lives under it, this world beyond our own is easily conceived and comprehensible. In that ability to comprehend is the power to destroy it.

The final battle(s) are artfully written. We jump back and forth between the two encounters. In 1958, each child seemed to have an assigned role. Bill is their leader who makes all their strategic decisions, Eddie is their guide with a compass in his head. Beverly is their marksman who wounds it with a silver plug shot with a slingshot (this works because the kids believe It is a werewolf and therefore vulnerable to silver weapons). Hanlon is their source of knowledge about It. Ben is their hero with undaunted courage who inspires the others. Richie is the trash talker who engages and enrages it with his woefully nerdy humor. Stan is the earnest and honest youth who seals their pact in the end. Each wielding his skill and ability comes to It’s lair and does battle.

In 1985, several of the heroes have fallen by the wayside. They enter the sewers and It’s lair in diminished numbers. The roles which came so naturally in 1958 are not so clearly defined. But with the same courage and drawing on the same imagination that was their weapon of yore, they engage It in the final showdown.

I won’t put in spoilers (anymore than I have to), but the denouement of It is wonderfully engaging as It’s defeat brings down the town of Derry.

It has loose ties to the Dark Tower series. It is easily discerned that It and the Turtle are inhabitants of the Dark Tower and creatures of other worlds that exist within the realm of the Dark Tower. Both final battles take place in what is certainly the Dark Tower. The Turtle is referenced in the Dark Tower narrative as a creature of power.

Also evident in It is the books links to other King works – especially the names of characters. The iron works in Derry that explode during an Easter egg hunt in the 1930s and kills dozens of kids and adults is the Kitchener Iron Works. Brad Kitchener is the electrician in Boulder in The Stand. The 1985 detective who works on solving one of Derry’s murders that summer is named Gardener. Gardener is the name of the poet who is the hero of The Tommyknockers which has absolutely no link to the Dark Tower series. The town of Haven where The Tommyknockers takes place and some of its inhabitants are referenced in It and events in It are linked to events in The Tommyknockers.

Derry and the Tracker Brothers truck depot near the house on Neibolt Street where the kids first do battle with It as a werewolf figure heavily in the final half of King's later book, The Dreamcathcer.

It was made into a two part mini-series for ABC television in 1990. While it failed to capture Derry’s horrific nature and abbreviated the apocalyptic battles with It, it was a fun and engaging movie. I will review it at a later date.

Book to Movie: The Legend of Hell House

The Legend of Hell House
Directed by John Hough
Screenplay by Richard Matheson

One of the comments made as our book club discussed Richard Matheson's Hell House was that it read very much like a screenplay. This comment was not made to disparage the entire book. The reader was disappointed in the ending because he said it had that “Hollywood ending that is neatly wrapped and all things are answered.”

I agree with this critic’s assessment, but was cool with the ending. The story was paced like a movie. Matheson was a prolific screenwriter in his day. His work for the big and small screen is nearly as extensive as his published work.

After completion of the novel, Matheson adapted it for the big screen, resulting in the 1973 movie The Legend of Hell House. It starred Roddy McDowell as Ben Fischer, Pamela Franklin as Laura Tanner, Clive Revel (who has been lost in history as the voice of the original Emperor Palpatine in the theatrical release of The Empire Strikes Back) as Lionel Barrett, and Gayle Hunnicutt as Ann Barrett.

The movie was shot in England with an all British cast. Therefore, instead of a large Maine estate, the Belasco House more closely resembled a castle. Eliminated from the original novel were the pivotal scenes in the sauna and the pool as well, since castles apparently don’t come equipped with those things. There is no dangerous tarn for the characters to wander into and there is no Bastard Bog, but the castle is Gothic enough to make for a spooky setting.

Also gone is much of the erotica. It is there, but Matheson’s narrative is much more risqué than what appears on the screen.

Of the cast, McDowell’s work was the strongest. McDowell’s Fischer was several years younger in the movie than he was in the book and his failed expedition occurred in 1954 as opposed to 1940. He is much more intense than the character portrayed in the book.

The movie was fun, old fashioned haunted house fare, as was the novel. It lacked the camp of House on Haunted Hill. It lacked the dark, brooding terror of The Shining, and the quiet darkness of The Haunting (1963 version).

However, the production values are sharp – looking very much like an early Hammer film. It is well-scripted with Matheson adapting his own work It is well directed, and despite the ‘70s penchant for overacting on occasion, is well performed. While there is better Matheson work on the big screen out there, this movie is definitely worth seeing just to enjoy some of Matheson’s work.

Hell House by Richard Matheson

Hell House
By Richard Matheson
Copyright 1971

This was a book of the month selection for my books, cigars, and scotch club that meets monthly. Apparently I nominated it in an off the cuff remark I made to the organizer of our group. I have read it before and found it to be an excellent haunted house novel. Haunted house stories are my favorite!

Richard Matheson’s tale centers on the Belasco House. At the turn of the century, a uber-narcissist constructed the mansion and made his castle of iniquity. Parties begat orgies, orgies begat drug addiction, drug addiction begat murder with the friends and associates of Emeric Balasco. His home would become known in the world of parapsychology as the “Mount Everest of haunted houses.”

A millionaire hires a physicist, Lionel Bennett and his wife Ann; a mental medium, Ben Fischer; and a spiritualist, Florence Tanner, to stay in Belasco House and prove conclusively the existence of life after death. The physicist brings with him equipment he is sure can capture and neutralize what haunts Hell House. The spritual medium is convinced that if she can reach that which haunts the home, she can set his soul free and end the haunting. The mental medium, the lone survivor of an earlier expedition that claimed three lives, hopes to survive his time there and collect his fee.

Upon their arrival, they are met with a recorded greeting on a phonograph from none other than Belasco himself. Shortly thereafter, the horror ensues. The entity that haunts Hell House attacks each, exploiting their weaknesses and self-doubts.

Bennett struggles to get his equipment assembled so that he may use science to dispel the poltergeists. Tanner reaches out to Daniel Belasco, Emeric’s son whom she believes is the tormented soul that bedevils them. It’s science versus spirituality in a race to meet Hell House’s demons.

Matheson is really the polar opposite of Stephen King in his approach to writing. King weaves complex characters, intricate backstories, and numerous subplots into his narratives that make for long novels. Matheson uses words sparingly. He drives a story through dialogue and action. His stories are sleek and taut. These divergent styles work for their respective authors.

None of the characters here have extensive backstories. We know that Bennett was stricken with polio which has left him impotent since childhood. He is quite secure in this. We find out, however, his wife, while always believing she was willing to lead a sexless marriage, sees her latent sexual desires thrust to the fore as Hell House manipulates her. The sexual tension in this novel is palpable and while not graphic, there is a fair amount of true erotica in Matheson’s prose. This erotica is the genesis of much of the interaction between the characters as each fights and pursues Belasco and his supernatural minions that allegedly haunt the house.

Hell House's backstory is really the rivalry that exists between science and spirituality. Barrett has dedicated years of research to the development of his equipment. His reputation and livelihood are riding on it. He is certain he has developed the means to prove the existence of discorporated spirits in our plane of existence.

Tanner wants to reach out to the tortured son of Emeric Belasco, believing the torment of being reared in such a decadent environment has poisoned her soul. She wants to save him from his torment and release his soul and end the haunting of Hell House. Barrett dismisses the existence of Belasco and pursues his science. Tanner ignores Barrett’s constant references to the science of haunting and pursues her spiritual quest. We find in the end that Belasco has made provisions against each approach.

King rates Matheson’s book as “. . .the scariest haunted house novel ever written.” High praise indeed, but not true in my estimation. I think King surpassed Hell House with The Shining. I would also rate Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House as superior as well.

That’s not to say that Matheson doesn’t weave a spooky tale. This month’s category for our book club was “summer page turner.” A page turner this book is indeed! The story is fast paced, compelling reading, and creative in its climax.

What fascinates me about Matheson is the breadth of the man’s writing. He is a screenwriter par excellence. His work on The Twilight Zone with Rod Serling and Charles Beaumont was groundbreaking for television. He, or others, have adapted several of his books for movies. The best known is I Am Legend which was made as The Last Man on Earth with Vincent Price in 1964, The Omega Man starring Charlton Heston in 1971, and as I Am Legend starring Will Smith in 2004.. But he is also the creative force behind such movies as The Incredible Shrinking Man, Stir of Echoes, Somewhere in Time (based on his book, Bid Time Return), The Box (based on his short story, Button, Button), and What Dreams May Come starring Robin Williams. The great Stephen Spielberg cut his teeth on movie making when he brought the Matheson novella, Duel, to the big screen in 1971.

Besides the Twilight Zone, his work can be seen in the original Star Trek in the episode The Enemy Within, the short lived but underrated Circle of Fear television series of the early 1970s, and the cult favorite Kolchak: The Night Stalker which ran but one season in 1974-75 but has legions of fans today.

Matheson is one of the giants of genre fiction. Writers as prolific as Stephen King and Dean Koontz have Matheson as their primary influence. George Romero, king of the zombie flick, credits Matheson as his primary influence. Richard Matheson is a giant standing on a mountain of prolific and influential work, but often goes unrecognized.

I would invite those who enjoyed his work on the big screen and the small screen to pick up something he has written and discover what a talented genius this man really is.

A Note on Short Stories

A Note on Short Stories

My wife will tell you (I know she’ll tell you because she tells me frequently) that there is a part of me that never grew up. I still enjoy many of the juvenile past times of my youth like watching the original Scooby Doo episodes as well as Land of the Lost and other Saturday morning juvenilia of the 1970s. I still enjoy going to amusement parks and taking apart my car to see if I can put it back together again.

Yes, I am a study in arrested development when it comes to entertainment.

Like almost everyone, I got my start in reading with short stories. I can still remember the joy of grade school and junior high lit teachers introducing me to the works of Ambrose Bierce, Guy de Maupassant, O. Henry, Edgar Allan Poe, and Jack London. Most of you probably read the pre-adolescent instructional stories I did. Tales such as Flowers for Algernon, The Telltale Heart, To Build a Fire, The Necklace, and An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge stuck with me through all these years and I still read them again from time to time.

The kid in me still enjoys a short, simple story that I can absorb in a limited amount of time.

I remember my mother using O. Henry’s Ransom of Red Chief as a cautionary tale when my constant misbehavior pushed her too far. My mother was an inveterate reader of short stories and had the complete works of O. Henry in her library. I know I read Ransom of Red Chief in grade school as an assignment, but I believe my mother once assigned it as punishment (diversion) one summer day when I’d driven her to distraction.

God bless my parents for maintaining a library so extensive that a 12 year old boy could explore and find meaty stories to sink his teeth into. She had Bradbury, Sturgeon, Bierce, as well as the complete works of Ira Levin who was my favorite writer before I read Stephen King.

Today, whether I’m delving deep into a weighty tome of presidential lore, taking in one of Stephen King’s gargantuan novels or delighting in Richard Matheson’s lean prose, I always have a collection of short stories at my side for when my time is short or my attention span is flagging.

I can’t remember precisely when I read my first full adult novel. I was perhaps 11 or 12 years old. I think it was Robert Marasco`’s Burnt Offerings. (It’s a scary book and I’ve heard of more than one Gen-Xer who was traumatized by the limo scene in the movie). I still have that novel on my shelf.

Even as I moved on from reading assigned short stories in grade school and junior high to reading books of my own choosing, I never forgot my love of those tales, mostly told by long dead writers, who introduced me to the world of reading. I love them today more than ever.

Swan Song by Robert R. McCammon

Swan Song
By Robert R. McCammon
Copyright 1987

Occasionally, an author creates a world that the reader can inhabit in his mind long after he has finished the book. Stephen King did it in The Stand. Stephen R. Donaldson did it with his Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, and J.R.R. Tolkien did it better than anyone in his Lord of the Rings trilogy. Robert McCammon rises to that level in his magnum opus, Swan Song.

The world is post-nuclear America. The characters are dispersed across the country, much like King’s characters in The Stand. Instead of an old woman in a cornfield, the good characters coalesce around a young girl named Sue Wanda, or “Swan”. Instead of a blue jean jacket-clad son of Satan, the evil characters coalesce around an aging, retired general who lusts for battle and power.

Swan and her de facto guardian, a freakishly large pro-wrestler, survive the nuclear war while hiding out in the cellar of a remote Nebraska gas station. Swan’s mother and the station owner succumb to radiation poisoning soon after the apocalypse. Swan and Joshua escape after approximately a month in the cellar and travel what’s left of America in search of food, water, and gasoline, along with the hundreds of other refugees that survive the ordeal. They soon end up in a small Missouri village. There, Swan demonstrates her special talent that will serve as the hope of mankind.

Sister (the only name she knows now) is a mentally ill, alcoholic, homeless person who survives by sleeping in a New York subway tunnel, emerges from her hideaway with her sanity nearly restored. She discovers in the wreckage a piece of melted glass in the shape of a donut. Within the glass are many precious gems and swirls of precious metals from a jewelry store across the street. The artifact gives her visions that lead her to that same Missouri settlement.

Colonel James Macklin had been reduced to serving as the chief draw of a commercial survivalist facility located in the Nevada desert. When the missiles hit, he survives the blast, but is trapped with debris pinning his hand. To amputate his hand and release him from his bondage, he finds an obliging 13 year old by named Roland Croninger who is a sadistic narcissist. Together, they form the Army of Excellence out of disaffected refugees. They storm across the countryside, raiding refugee settlements and killing those who oppose them. They want Swan and her talent to supply their army.

Eventually, they attack the Missouri settlement. They take Swan, Sister, and Joshua hostage and travel to a remote West Virginia ski resort where God is reputed to reside. The rest is the end of history. . .

It’s not hard to see the influence of Stephen King. There are too many parallels between The Stand and Swan Song. That does not diminish the power of this story, its characters, or the barren wasteland that is America after it is nuked. While the stories are similar, the characters are remarkably different. Besides, a tale can be retold in a number of ways and be enjoyable.

The character Sister is one of the finest and most complex I’ve ever encountered in horror literature. Her backstory is tragic and makes her an anti-hero who finds redemption in the post-nuclear world. McCammon teases us and keeps us engaged in her development by revealing details of that backstory sparingly.

Swan is not particularly remarkable as a hero. But McCammon uses her to impact the more complex characters around her to help them develop.

Roland Cronninger’s sadistic evil is developed nicely while not becoming a caricature – the chief fault of King’s Dark Man -- Randall Flagg. He clearly demonstrates the evil that video games do to our children as he sees himself as a hero in a video game as he carries out his evil deeds.

It's Cold War zeitgeist dates it just a little. But methinks that a lot of Cold War related literature is going to be getting a second look as the 1980s slowly becomes the decade about which our culture romanticizes.

I have read all of McCammon’s stuff. Swan Song is McCammon at his best and I rank it among the finest novels I’ve ever read by any author.