The Bradbury Chronicles: The Life of Ray Bradbury

The Bradbury Chronicles: The Life of Ray Bradbury

by Sam Weller

William Morrow, 394 pp. $26.95

Is there any quantitative or qualitative way to measure the tremendous, meteoric impact Waukegan, Ill.'s native spaceman has had on American letters, pop culture, and the planet as a whole? I seriously have my doubts, but Weller's biography, by far the most revelatory and fascinating glimpse behind the curtain of Bradbury's Oz-ian wonderland and his long, creative struggle to escape the tag of "science-fiction writer" in favor of just plain old "writer," surely comes close. Regardless of whether you view Stephen King as a lucky hack or as one of America's pre-eminent regionalists, as the Maine man himself says here, there'd be no King were it not for Bradbury's ornately creepy early tales of Green Town vampires and lonely carnival dwarves. Other American legends chime in as well – Buzz Aldrin, Stan Lee, Studs Terkel, Steve Wozniak – in a Greek chorus of resoundingly high praise for Bradbury's lo-fi genius. But it's the ill-lit background of Bradbury's personal life that Weller has uncovered that elevates The Bradbury Chronicles to something more than a lengthy mash note to this most illustrative of men. For writers and artists weaned on the holy triumvirate of ripe, dark imagination – Bradbury, Forest J. Ackerman, and Ray Harryhausen (not to mention William Gaines and Rod Serling) – there's never been any denying his profound influence, but who knew this grand, dreaming man-child with a writerly work ethic that'd put Shakespeare to shame (one story a week, every week, for the last 60-odd years) suffered the slings and arrows of John Huston while penning the screenplay for the director's Moby Dick? Or that a series of affairs (egads!) rocked his longtime marriage to wife Maggie in the Seventies? Or that there is a completed but as-yet-unpublished sequel to his small-town masterpiece Dandelion Wine waiting, even now, to be published? Or that he was investigated by Hoover's draconian FBI, who rightly sensed a glorious subversive in a cockeyed patriot's clothing? Weller's book succeeds, strangely enough, by fully humanizing this most humanistic of American scribes. While The Bradbury Chronicles remains, at its breathlessly detailed and adoring heart, a paean to both the inexhaustible author and the dizzying power of the creative act, it's also a splendid how-to guide for every fresh-off-the-Ferris-wheel writer who dreams of discovering, hitting, and, most importantly, maintaining their artistic stride in a world where straggling mediocrity has become the national pastime. Bradbury's lush, endless summers and dark, forever Octobers are now as much a part of the American iconography as Twain's Mississippi mud and Steinbeck's hungry dust devils, and his oft-repeated intention – "Live forever!" – has at last been borne out of his dreams and into the bright welcoming sunlight of literary immortality.