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Summary
Summary
Ray Bradbury is an American literary icon, an architect of wonders whose life has been as fascinating, momentous, and inspiring as his fiction, which has enthralled millions of readers the world over for more than six decades.
Born Rae Douglas Bradbury on August 22, 1920, in Waukegan, Illinois, he displayed an affinity for the fantastic at an early age -- spending hours at the local movie theater, fighting his fear of the dark to escape into glorious made-up worlds. Though he once dreamed of becoming an actor, writing was his true calling, and he remained resolute in his art throughout his early adult years despite numerous rejections -- finally breaking through with publications of his horror and fantasy stories in the "pulp" magazines of the forties. It was not long before he ascended to a higher literary plane, creating the acclaimed works that would solidify his place as one of the most important and influential authors of the twentieth century: Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, and Dandelion Wine, to name a very few.
Award-winning journalist Sam Weller has been granted unparalleled access to Bradbury's private archives, and has spent hundreds of hours interviewing longtime friends, family members, colleagues, and the author himself. As a result, Weller gives us a uniquely balanced, in-depth, and utterly remarkable portrait of a remarkable man, the life story up until now of a brilliant visionary artist and enigmatic mass of contradictions -- the writer who envisioned rocket travel to the stars but who never learned to drive a car; the futurist who brought astonishing tomorrows to life yet refuses to operate a computer; the passionate free spirit who remained devotedly married to one woman -- his beloved Marguerite -- for more than fifty years.
The Bradbury Chronicles is, at once, a poignant love story, an inspiring tale of struggle and accomplishment, and a spellbinding record of an extraordinary era in America's history and the man who helped define it. Here is Ray Bradbury -- dreamer, author, humanist, poet, innovator -- a one-of-a-kind literary force of nature whose extraordinary life can now be celebrated along with the enduring masterworks with which he has graced the world.
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Journalist Weller pays tribute to an American icon in this ebullient authorized biography of Ray Bradbury, author of Fahrenheit 451 and The Martian Chronicles, who was born in Waukegan, Ill., on August 22, 1920. ("I remember the day I was born," Bradbury claims in what is perhaps a sign of his genius-or of the price of access to him.) In highly readable prose, Weller surveys Bradbury's ancestors and family, his boyhood move to Hollywood, his introduction to science fiction and fantasy and his early writing attempts, which reflect the themes that pervade his more mature work: "nostalgia, loneliness, lost love, and death." If Weller places Bradbury in a pantheon occupied by Shakespeare, Melville, Dickens and Poe, he also mentions more than one extramarital affair and his hero's poor eating habits. Highlights include Bradbury's collaboration with John Huston on the film Moby Dick, his receiving the National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters in 2000 and his recent feud with Michael Moore over the title of Moore's documentary film Fahrenheit 9/11. A serious critical biography will have to wait until after the master's death, but for now this adoring portrait will satisfy most Bradbury fans. Agent, Judith Ehrlich. (Apr. 5) FYI: Weller is a former Midwest correspondent for Publishers Weekly. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
The title of Weller's biography, the first of the great and influential storyteller Ray Bradbury, is a play on one of Bradbury's most loved books, The Martian Chronicles 0 (1950), and a perfect description of Weller's approach. According to Webster's0 , chronicle 0 means a "continuous historical account of events arranged in order of time without analysis or interpretation." Although Weller discusses Bradbury's enthusiasms (comics, movies, Halloween, and ice cream) and key themes (loneliness, mortality, magic, censorship, racism, war, and technology), offers frank observations about his personality ("a poster boy for the Peter Pan syndrome"), and describes how Bradbury transformed his past into "autobiographical fantasies," his primary objective is to tell straight the entire, amazing story of how a myopic boy from Waukegan, Illinois, turned himself into the mind-expanding, genre-transcending, and internationally beloved creator of such seminal tales as The Illustrated Man0 (1951) and Fahrenheit 451 0 (1953) .0 Bradbury granted literary journalist and lifelong fan Weller unprecedented access to his private life and private archive, and Weller has repaid the favor with a compulsively readable account of an exceptionally prescient, innovative, eccentric, and dedicated writer who has electrified the imaginations of generations of readers. More scholarly and literary biographies will follow, but none will have the vitality and intimacy of this living portrait. --Donna Seaman Copyright 2005 Booklist
School Library Journal Review
Adult/High School-Weller focuses on Bradbury's professional successes and difficulties. After writing a few stories for pulp magazines, some of which were self-published, Bradbury suddenly found his pieces anthologized in The Best American Short Stories (Houghton) and his work in demand from national magazines and publishers. A strong work ethic, along with a little luck and a lot of charm, carried him through a long, successful career. Aside from the masterworks like Something Wicked This Way Comes (Bantam, 1983) and Fahrenheit 451 (Ballantine, 1987) that he's most known for, Bradbury also wrote for television, worked as a script writer for director John Huston's version of Moby Dick, and even served as a consultant to Walt Disney for what would become the EPCOT Center. Weller's research-based on interviews with Bradbury as well as family members and colleagues-is almost exhaustive in its detail, and he does a fine job of presenting the facts of his subject's unique life. The lively, conversational prose brings out the writer's winning personality and turns his struggles and successes into a highly readable story. The presentation comes off as a little one-sided at times, but this is a quibble about a book that, overall, is informative, enjoyable, and inspiring.-Matthew L. Moffett, Northern Virginia Community College, Annandale (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
Rosy and authorized biography of SF visionary Bradbury by Midwestern journalist Weller. The author does a snappy job of portraying the halcyon early days of Bradbury's success, though he rarely delves beneath the veil of hazy memory that suits a cranky elder writer intent on fashioning perceptions of his life. Though born in Waukegan, Ill., in 1920, young Ray moved at age 13 with his family to L.A., where his father could finally find work during the Depression, and where Bradbury would live the rest of his life. Weller claims his subject as a "prairie writer--the prairie is in his voice and it is his moral compass," and calls him a mama's boy. Passionate about the movies, magic and the First World Science Fiction Convention in New York City, which he reached via Greyhound bus in 1939, Bradbury set about writing a story a week. He became a regular contributor to such pulps as Weird Tales and Script, credits that would haunt him later when editors resisted considering him a serious writer. His marriage to retiring Marguerite McClure in 1947 (lasting until her recent death) dovetailed with professional success after success, from the publication of his first story collection, Dark Carnival, to securing influential Simon & Schuster editor cum agent Don Congdon, to the swift appearance of The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, Dandelion Wine, and Fahrenheit 451 (written in a heat against the McCarthy hearings during the early '50s). The chapter covering his ill-fated year in Ireland writing the screenplay for John Huston's Moby-Dick hints at events Bradbury wishes were left unearthed, as do mentions (without names) of his extramarital affairs in later years. His work for both NASA and Walt Disney (designing the EPCOT Center) warrants an entire book in itself. A proficient study of a prodigious talent still going strong, but Weller surely had to tie his hands in order to stay in Bradbury's good graces. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
Although extremely popular for half a century, American fantasy writer Ray Bradbury (b. 1920) has never been the subject of a complete biography until now. Journalist Weller struck up a warm acquaintance with Bradbury in 2000, and this highly detailed, quotation-laden book reflects his access to Bradbury himself, Bradbury's family and friends, and Bradbury's private archives. Born in unthreatening Waukegan, IL-which played a large part in his later fiction (Dandelion Wine)-Bradbury grew up in a family with little money for books and learned early to patronize the public library, where he became an omnivorous reader. Although he rose to fame quickly, publishing his first fantasy story at the age of 20, his stories at heart are human in scope; he cared little for scientific accuracy and resented the label "science fiction writer" as being unduly restrictive. Spanning a revolutionary period in communications and the arts, this lively biography written in nonacademic prose is a pleasure to read; Weller probes Bradbury's work and takes the time to address small but amusing details, like the fact that the masterful writer never had the time or nerve to acquire a driver's license. Highly recommended.-Charles C. Nash, formerly with Cottey Coll., Nevada, MO (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Excerpts
Excerpts
The Bradbury Chronicles The Life of Ray Bradbury Chapter One Remembrance of the Past Ray Bradbury's most significant contribution to our culture is showing us that the imagination has no foreseeable boundaries. His skills as a storyteller have inspired and empowered generations to tell their stories no matter how bizarre or improbable. Today we need Ray Bradbury's gifts more than ever, and his stories have made him immortal. -- Steven Spielberg, Academy Award-winning director "I remember the day I was born." With this Dickensian flourish, so begins the life story of Ray Bradbury. The birth recollection was one of Ray's favorite stories to tell. Not surprisingly, it often provoked audible incredulity from his audiences --whether one person or a room full of Bradbury devotees. "I have what might be called almost total recall back to my birth," he continued. "This is a thing I have debated with psychologists and with friends over the years. They say, 'It's impossible.' Yet I remember." This much is certain: Ray Douglas Bradbury arrived in the world, in Waukegan, Illinois, at 4:50 p.m. on August 22, 1920, with Dr. Charles Pierce presiding at Maternity Hospital, a few blocks west of the small Bradbury family home. Ray had overstayed his time in the womb by a month, and it was his theory that the additional incubation time may have heightened his senses. "When you stay in the womb for ten months, you develop your eyesight and your hearing. So when I was born, I remember it," he insisted. And who is to argue? "Born to Mr. and Mrs. Leo Bradbury, 11 South St. James Street, a son," proclaimed the birth announcement in the Waukegan Daily Sun. Although the name on his birth certificate was spelled "R-a-y," Ray said he was originally given the name "Rae" after Rae Williams, a cousin on his father's side, and that it was not until the first grade that, at a teacher's recommendation, his parents changed the spelling of his first name. The name was too feminine, the teacher said, and the boy would be teased. The origin of his middle name, however, is not in dispute. Ray's mother, a great cinema fan who would soon pass this love on to her son, chose his middle name, Douglas, for the swashbuckling screen star Douglas Fairbanks. Of his birth, Ray claimed to remember "the camera angle" as he emerged into the world. He recalled the terrific pain of being born, the sensation of going from darkness to light, and the desperate desire to remain enshrouded in the shadowy realm of the womb. Lending further Freudian fodder to skeptical developmental psychologists everywhere, Ray added, "I remember suckling, the taste of my mother's breast milk, and nightmares about being born experienced in my crib in the first weeks of my life." Two days after the birth, Ray recalled his first encounter with real fear. His father wrapped him in a blanket and carried him into downtown Waukegan. They climbed a dark stairwell and entered a second-floor doctor's office. Ray remembered the bright, otherworldly light and the cold tiled room and what he would later realize was the scent of Lysol. He distinctly recalled the milk-white ghost face of a doctor holding a stainless steel scalpel. And then he felt the sharp pain of circumcision. Many years later, a friend of Ray's, the author, critic, and editor of the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Anthony Boucher, remarked that Ray Bradbury had a "back to the womb complex." Ray responded, with typical Bradburian aplomb, "Yes ... but whose womb?" The birthplace of Ray Bradbury, Waukegan, Illinois, is perched on the edge of a gently rising bluff that overlooks the slate-green waters of Lake Michigan. The city stands some forty miles north of downtown Chicago, as the raven flies. Centuries ago, this land was densely forested. Carved at the end of the ice age by melting glaciers that scored the soft heartland soil, it is marked by deep ravines that scar the landscape, eventually opening out into Lake Michigan. While the land to the west of the city is level farmland, Waukegan, with these dramatic, densely forested ravines, coldwater creeks, and the bluff the city stands on, offers a gentle contrast to the popular image of table-flat American heartland. Today, Waukegan is a city at a crossroads. The turn-of-the-century grandeur of this lakefront community has given way to a long economic decline. In Ray's childhood, the Waukegan lakefront, with its sandy beaches, was a popular destination, vibrant and crowded with people. On warm summer days, it bloomed with colorful parasols, and men, women, and children swam in the cool lake. But decades passed and the crown jewel of Waukegan, its beachfront, shriveled under industry and pollution. Though the factories are mostly abandoned today, they still stand, like rust-laden skeletons on cold winter days as the winds gust in off Lake Michigan. Downtown Waukegan has also changed. Storefronts stand vacant; For Lease signs are propped up in many window displays. While some of the wealthiest suburbs in the nation are nestled on the lakefront between Waukegan and Chicago, Waukegan remains peculiar in its decaying isolation, an aging town with a rich history and the high hopes of future revitalization. Ray Bradbury's connections to fantasy, space, cinema, to the macabre and the melancholy, were all born of his years spent running, jumping, galloping through the woods, across the fields, and down the brick-paved streets of Waukegan. His lifelong love of comics was born here, along with his connection to magic and his symbiotic relationship to Halloween. Although he moved away from the Midwest for good at the age of thirteen, Ray Bradbury is a prairie writer. The prairie is in his voice and it is his moral compass. It is his years spent in Waukegan, Illinois -- later rechristened by Ray as "Green Town" in many books and stories -- that forever shaped him. The Bradbury Chronicles The Life of Ray Bradbury . Copyright © by Sam Weller. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold. Excerpted from The Bradbury Chronicles: The Life of Ray Bradbury by Sam Weller All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.