REMEMBRANCE

An inside look at the beloved writer.

“The selection of letters in this volume offers the first sustained look at his inner life from his late teens to his ninth decade,” writes Eller, co-founder of the Center for Ray Bradbury Studies at Indiana University. Eller organizes the letters into categories and provides useful information about the recipients, and they are often accompanied by responses that give the collection a highly readable, narrative-like flow. Bradbury wrote to mentors, influencers, young and older writers, filmmakers, publishing people, assorted political folks, family, and friends. The letters reveal a hard-working writer who loved his craft. The first, from the industrious, curious 17-year-old, is to Edgar Rice Burroughs, inviting him to speak at a local Los Angeles book group. Those to Robert Heinlein show a young writer finding his way as more of his stories were getting published in the pulps. In the mid-1940s, Bradbury and Theodore Sturgeon began corresponding. Bradbury was a huge admirer: “You have the touch.” In the early ’50s, Bradbury excitedly writes about publishing his first book, selling stories to popular magazines, book deals with publishers, and a film deal. In a letter to Bernard Berenson he confesses that when “I write my stories, I am as overjoyed as anyone who reads them later.” One from Graham Greene in 1985 pointed out a small error in a story. There’s a strong selection with filmmakers, including John Huston and Truffaut. To August Derleth, Bradbury admits that he took his style “to the edge, the very rim, of the precipice” in Something Wicked This Way Comes. Bradbury’s letters with his longtime agent Don Congdon capture the nitty-gritty of the publishing industry as well as the TV series Ray Bradbury Theater.

Fans of Bradbury and literature in general will relish this rich, well-curated collection.