Where Memory Hides: A Writer's Life

By Richard A. Lupoff

"Where Memory Hides" is a guided tour through the life and career of mystery and science fiction’s most versatile practitioner. Richard A. Lupoff has been a professional author for six decades, and a life-time fan of everything from pulp magazines to comic books, science fiction and mystery, and more. As the extensive bibliography (included in this book) demonstrates, Lupoff's credits run the gamut of fiction, nonfiction, mainstream publishing, and fan journals. In the 1960s, he penned "All In Color For a Dime," a foundation-laying work for modern comic book fandom, and "Edgar Rice Burroughs: Master of Adventure," a study of Tarzan's creator. "The Comic Book Killer" and "Marblehead" are among his best-known novels. His short story 12:01 PM, filmed twice in the 1990s, added a new sub-genre to science fiction and spawned a legion of imitators.

In "Where Memory Hides," Lupoff regales readers with triumphs and tribulations from his six-decade plus career. He also offers insights of writing, and haggling with agents, and literary criticism of authors such as Dashiell Hammett, H.P. Lovecraft, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and many others.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bold Venture Press
• Release date: Jan 5, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370747467

Richard A. Lupoff

In his highly checkered career, Richard A. Lupoff has been a short-order cook, dishwasher, movie usher, military policeman, college professor, and petty bureaucrat. All of these experiences have fed into the rich — if somewhat chaotic — data bank that nourishes his literary career. In that career he has been a sports writer, radio news writer and broadcaster, novelist, short story writer, critic, screen-writer, editor, anthologist, and on very rare occasions, poet. He has the rare distinction of having had stories selected for best-of-the-year anthologies in three fields: science fiction, mystery, and horror.

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Where Memory Hides:

A Writer’s Life

by Richard A. Lupoff

Published by Bold Venture Press

boldventurepress.com

Cover design: Rich Harvey

Cover photo by Beth Gwinn, of the seated author

Cover photo of the author and wife, predating the term cosplay,

at the 1960 World Science Fiction Convention

Where Memory Hides: A Writer’s Life by Richard A. Lupoff

Copyright © 2016 Richard A. Lupoff. All Rights Reserved.

This book is available in print at most online retailers.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without express permission of the publisher and copyright holder. All persons, places and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to any actual persons, places or events is purely coincidental.

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Table of Contents

Dedication

Introduction: Richard Lupoff: A Life in Fanzines by Gregory Benford

Introduction: Richard Lupoff: A Life Beyond Science Fiction by Bill Crider

Preface: The Oldest Living Lupoff

Chapter 1: A Writer Writes

Chapter 2: A Family Legend

Chapter 3: How I Found Myself

Chapter 4: Education of a Writer

Chapter 5: My Choices

Chapter 6: My Bread was Buttered and Bouillabaisse

Chapter 7: Down But Not Out

Chapter 8: Writer in a Bookstore (but who cared, really, except for me?)

Chapter 9: Writer in a Creative Trance

Chapter 10: Then Arose a Literature Ladder

Chapter 11: Write What is Known, Not Necessarily What You Know (at least, according to Uncle Sam)

Chapter 12: Writing in a Fog or a Fugue

Chapter 13: No Such Thing as Mike Fright

Chapter 14: The Time I Was the Greatest (and other lineage incidentals)

Chapter 15: Believer

Chapter 16: Leftovers

Chapter 17: An Editor … Edits and Other things

Chapter 18: Into the Sunset

Chapter 19: Fiction: Fourth Avenue Interlude by Richard A. Lupoff

Chapter 20: Poetry: Holy Man; At the Cosmic Saloon; 1984: The Musical

Chapter 21: Bibliography of the works of Richard A(llen) Lupoff

Other Books by Richard A. Lupoff

Connect with Bold Venture Press

Praise for Where Memory Hides

Dedication

At 3:30 AM on January 1, 1958 my life began.

— RAL

Richard Lupoff:

A Life in the Fanzines

Introduction by Gregory Benford

As a young science fiction fan in the mid-1950s, I already knew that Richard (Dick) Lupoff was ahead of me in the great game of the One True Literature.

From fanzines I knew he had been in the Army, so he came from the culture I already knew, since my own father was a Lieutenant Colonel; we had already lived in occupied Japan and Germany. Dick had spent two comfortable years at Fort Benning and Fort Gordon, Georgia, and Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indiana. But he came to my attention when in 1958 he started looking for a job as a writer or editor. He said he would have loved working for John Campbell or Anthony Boucher or Horace Gold as an assistant at one of the science fiction magazines of the day, but the bigger field of computer tech was just beginning. Dick got a job as a technical writer for Sperry Univac — a computer that became a metaphor: Univac! It had 1000 words of memory then (!), about 12 kilobytes, and filled a room.

Reader, I read in fanzines of Dick’s job there and his move to IBM — and used his reflections on that in memory when I wrote my winning entry for a Fantasy and Science Fiction story competition in 1964, my first sale — my only fantasy, with a unicorn and a Univac in it, by the contest’s constraints. Dick’s amusing comments on the early tech industry stuck in my mind. Meanwhile Dick started his arc toward sf pro status.

By mid-60s Dick had edited and written himself into our genre, with his first book, Edgar Rice Burroughs: Master of Adventure in 1965. I noticed his first novel, One Million Centuries, and liked it in 1967. Big, expansive stuff.

He was a passionate fan of comic books: superheroes, science fiction and horror. Same as me — Jules Verne, Heinlein, Clarke, etc. But Dick was into horror, too, including The Dunwich Horror by H.P. Lovecraft — who thought he was an sf writer!

Dick hit all the mags and was a burgeoning force. He gave me good advice. We even collaborated on a satirical novel, Dick managing an introducing chapter that resonates with luscious memories of the 1950s, backseat love, the aroma of youth. But we never wrote more, alas.

In the science fiction magazines — Galaxy, Fantasy and Science Fiction, Other Worlds, Thrilling Wonder Stories — I found a path to science, while Dick found many others. I especially liked Xero, his Hugo-winning fanzine about mostly the pulp, comics and mag world. How many fanzines have had a book reprint their best? To a first approximation, as we say in physics, one.

My brother and I had started publishing a fanzine, Void, that came to some prominence in last 1950s into 1960s, with other fan editors coming in to help, notably Ted White and Terry Carr. Both went on to be pro writers and editors, as I did, too — though for me always a hobby. Dick was a leader in our generation’s march from fanzines to prodom, a pattern stretching back to the 1930s. First write half a million lousy words, out of sight, then send your better stuff to the prozines….

He made his big break by quitting computer work and moving to Berkeley, where we first met, as I recall. He plunged in, immersing in the rock scene there (while still raising a family) and writing novels like Sacred Locomotive Flies, Space War Blues, The Triune Man, Sun’s End, and Circumpolar!, plus maybe his best, a fantasy novel, Sword of the Demon, that had great creative zing. Better than Tolkien, I thought; still do.

The Adventures of Professor Thintwhistle and His Incredible Aether Flyer with Steve Stiles invented steampunk before my Orange County friends did, and doesn’t get enough credit.

But Dick’s career hit a bump and he did other things than sf. As he puts it, The fact is, I didn’t quit, I was fired. He had more courage than I. Never would I attempt to be a full-time writer; he did, always a risk. I had a PhD and wanted to do science, but I fathom the lure of the full-time pro.

His attitude toward life is best embodied in a wonderful photo of him and Pat in superhero costume. Name any writer who could show himself better than this!

Dick has soldiered on, still active, still coming. I admire that. I like the way this book circles round on his life, revisiting some notes, building on them. His life is a tale well told — a lesson in the tides of genre.

Richard Lupoff:

A Life Beyond Science Fiction

Introduction by Bill Crider

First of all, let me tell you a little story that I believes reveals a lot about Dick Lupoff.

A good many years ago, I was attending a Bouchercon (that’s the World Mystery Convention) in San Francisco. I was scheduled to be on two panels. One of them was to be about cross-genre novels, and the moderator was a Big Name SF Writer whose work I’d read and admired. I don’t remember the topic of the other panel, but the moderator was Dick Lupoff, whose work I’d also read and enjoyed in Dangerous Visions and in the digest magazines. I was also a fan of his study of the work of Edgar Rice Burroughs.

The cross-genre panel came first. When we were all seated, the Big Name SF writer said, I’ve never read any of your books, and I don’t expect that I ever will. So you’d better just introduce yourselves. A friend of mine was sitting in the first row of seats, and he laughed so hard I thought he might fall into the floor. As for me, I was looking around for a hole to crawl into but I couldn’t find one.

Later, having struggled through the panel, I was sitting in the audience of another panel. I noticed that the man sitting next to me had a copy of one of my books in his hands. I believe the book was One Dead Dean, an academic mystery. I looked at the man’s name tag and saw that it said Dick Lupoff. I introduced myself, and almost as soon as I got my name out, Dick began telling me how much he’d enjoyed the book. He even mentioned a few details from it so that I knew he’d read it. This made up for the previous comment by the Big Name SF Author, and then some, and the respect I had for Lupoff the writer was increased by my respect for Lupoff the man, who’d read at least one book by everyone on his panel. I’m sure he doesn’t remember this trivial event, but it meant a lot to me.

It wasn’t long after that convention that Lupoff began a series of mystery novels of his own, beginning with The Comic Book Killer, featuring insurance claims adjustor Hobart Lindsey and Berkeley homicide cop Marva Plum. This interracial couple (they’re lovers as well as investigators) went on from there to work on a number of other cases in eight novels and a number of short stories. All the novels are involved with collecting and/or collections, and in reading them, one is likely to learn a lot about popular culture. In The Comic Book Killer, Batman and the Human Torch are the center of attention. In The Classic Car Killer it’s automobiles. In The Bessie Blue Killer it’s classic airplanes like the B-17s and Zeros. Lindsey’s mind is filled with pop culture trivia from many decades, and the references crop up frequently in the novels, filling them with a sense of how the past and present mingle. The local color in the books is wonderfully done, and the Berkeley area comes alive in Lupoff’s fine descriptive prose.

That’s not all. Don’t get the idea that these novels are all about nostalgia and collecting. That’s only one element, and it deepens the reading experience. In addition, the books are also a serious look at crime, and they show a solid knowledge of investigative techniques, including the use of the latest technology available at the time. The plotting and action carry things along at top speed, and all the novels in the series are an excellent addition to any crime fiction collection.

And no one should overlook Rookie Blues, a collection of one novel and three short stories about Nick Train, beginning at the start of his career as a New York cop in 1938 and ending in 1946. Train’s a former boxer, not a very successful one, who gets a job as a cop because a friend suggests it. He’s actually surprised to be hired, but he’s eager to succeed and remain an honest man, not easy to do when your partner’s on the take. Things get complicated when Train’s partner is killed and his best friend is murdered. This book is a fine example of Lupoff’s vigorous prose and of his ability to recreate a time and place now long gone.

The book you have in your hands is proof of that ability, too, as Lupoff recalls his life and times and brings to life his days as a fan of so many things — comics, Edgar Rice Burroughs, superheroes. It’s a wonderful look at the life of a man who’s still writing, still evolving, still in possession of a sense of wonder about life and the world of fiction. Read this, read his novels and stories, and your life will be enriched.

The Oldest Living Lupoff

Preface

My first sale? Jeez, I was a professional sports writer when Harry Truman was President!

First book was Edgar Rice Burroughs: Master of Adventure, Canaveral Press, 1965, followed by three Ace editions. Most recent edition from Bison Books — University of Colorado. Fifty-one years and kicking/writing, still.

First fiction sale was a novel, One Million Centuries, Lancer Books, 1967. Later there was an edition from Pocket Books. Not a great novel, but passable, I guess. Deliberately un-ambitious. More than twenty novels followed a New Wave classic, Sacred Locomotive Flies, a science fiction duology, Circumpolar!/Countersolar!, an epic fantasy, Sword of the Demon, and Marblehead: A Novel of H.P. Lovecraft.

I wrote about the creator of Tarzan, Edgar Rice Burroughs: Master of Adventure, and a history of comic books, All in Color for a Dime. The latter, of course, and its sequel The Comic Book Book, collaborative efforts co-edited with my pal, the late Don Thompson.

A Hugo Award came early for Xero, my wife Pat’s-and-my fanzine, followed by other nominations for Hugos and Nebula Awards. Those are all for books. There were some incidents in Hollywood, too. We’ll come to those later, if my memory doesn’t fail. We geezers do get forgetful.

Some ambitious science fiction appeared before I switched (mostly) to writing mysteries: Hobart Lindsey and Marva Plum whodunits (eight novels) plus several short story collections. Another one-off police procedural, Rookie Blues, and three collections of detective shorts (at last count). I’ve had the good luck (or right connections) to have stories selected for best-of-the-year anthologies in three fields: science fiction, mystery, and horror.

Let’s not even get into the time-loop short story 12:01 P.M., which was adapted into an Oscar-nominated short film as well as a feature-length TV movie starring Martin Landau, and … well, let me not say copied, but just resort to the aphorism that suggests imitation is the best form of flattery.

I’m not famous. Not a household name. While I don’t have stardom, I certainly have acquired my share of notoriety. My friend Christopher Conlon suggested it results from being a chameleon, in an introduction to one of my most recent collections, Dreamer’s Dozen.

Let me tell you how Dreamer’s Dozen and this autobiography came about. Several decades ago Pat and I travelled to Florida for the dual purpose of visiting relatives and taping some interviews for my weekly radio show here in California. In Florida we met a journalist — and — pulp fiction enthusiast — named Audrey Parente.

We wound up sharing a wonderful visit with two retired pulp authors, Basil Wells and Theodore Roscoe, and their wives. Everyone got along marvelously and we exchanged letters — that was in the era when letters were made out of paper and ink, not electrons — for a while after Pat and I returned home. But time and geography intervened, and eventually our correspondence lapsed.

Fast forward thirty-odd years and we stumble across Audrey again, thanks to the internet. She’s now editing for Bold Venture Press and asks me for a book, which she edits and Bold Venture publishes. It’s a mixed-genre collection called Dreamer’s Dozen. Next thing I know, Audrey is hounding me for an autobiography.

Now we flash backward two decades. My beloved brother, Jerry, had recently died. Several family members, and Jerry’s younger son, Jeff, invite me out for an evening in San Francisco. After plying me with strong waters they urge me to write a family history. You’re the oldest living Lupoff, they argued, you know all our family history. Once you’re gone, everything will be lost.

In the quarter century since then I’ve tried to reconstruct that meeting, and I’ve wound up feeling like a character in Ryunosuke Akutagawa’s classic story, Rashomon. Everybody’s recollection of the event is different. My older son, Ken, doesn’t remember any such meeting. Neither does my wife, Pat. My nephew Peter says simply, I remember that. Peter’s brother, Jeff, recalls it as a dinner involving himself, his wife Nancy, and Pat and me. I remember it as a lunch involving Ken, Peter, and me.

The best I could promise was to give it a try. In fact I did, but I’d got only a few pages written before I ran into an emotional roadblock and abandoned the project. In the following years I didn’t get back to it, but I did write several volumes of assorted essays, reviews, and interviews. Titles were Writer at Large followed by Writer Volume 1, Writer Volume 2, and Writer Volume 3. Many of the essays in these books were in effect memoirs.

When I stalled Audrey about the proposed autobiography, she went behind my back — sly editor! — and deconstructed those four books. Surfed the internet until she’d found other essays and anecdotes and interviews. Laid everything out like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and reassembled them into this book.

I’ve added a fair amount of new material, recollections and reflections on my eighty-one years of life. Eighty-one years! I never thought I’d reach this age. I remember standing on the lawn of our family house in Florida, one night in the spring of 1956. I’d recently gotten my bachelor’s degree at the University of Miami, and on my twenty-first birthday I’d been commissioned as an officer in the United States Army.

I was counting down to my reporting date, marking the calendar, playing baseball with neighborhood kids, and reading science fiction by the carload. I believed that we would someday travel in space. First stop would obviously be the moon. I stood on the lawn that night, gazing up at the moon, hoping and dreaming.

Would I live long enough to see that? My estimate was, it would happen somewhere around the year 2010. Could I possibly live that long? Obviously my estimate was pessimistic. I was off by four decades.

During all those decades, I wrote. In the introduction to Dreamer’s Dozen, Conlon said, before he could make any case for the excellence of the stories in the collection, he had to figure out why, as well-known as I was in the science fiction, fantasy, and vintage pulp communities for at least half a century, I was not renowned. Certainly nothing like Stephen King or J.K. Rowling, or even Harlan Ellison.

No matter. I’ve made a living in the literary arena and had my share of public attention, and that’s been enough for me. Anyway, I’m not what you’d call a whack-o conspiracy theorist, but it seems to me that too many inconvenient public figures get killed in plane crashes, starting with Dag Hammarskold and moving on to John Tower, Senator Paul Wellstone, G. David Schine, Francis Gary Powers, etc.

There was an incident in the early 1960s when I was working for the Sperry Rand Corporation and assigned as speech-writer for various company bigwigs. Wrote a speech for a Corporate Vice President named Jay W. Schnackel. Got a message back from his office saying he was very pleased with the text I’d provided.

He was scheduled to deliver the speech in another city and was going to fly there in a small airplane. I was hoping he’d invite me along. I’d get to stay over in a five-star hotel and fly back with the bigshot. This, I hoped, would give me a chance to rub elbows with corporate brass and maybe enhance my career. As well as getting to stay in posh digs, eat premium vittles, etc. But Mr. Schnackel decided just to fly out to Harrisburg (or wherever), deliver his speech, and head back to New York.

The mind is a strange thing — because the way I remember it, Mr. Schnackel never got there. Plane crashed, no survivors. However, the text of the speech was published in one of those business magazines — I’m sure you know the kind — title was something like Computer Executive — along with Mr. Schnackel’s byline and author photo.

But here’s something really, really, really strange. Or maybe I’ve been living a dream for the past fifty-odd years.

Just for the hell of it I looked up Jay W. Schnackel on Wikipedia and it indicates that he wasn’t killed in that airplane crash at all. In fact the airplane didn’t crash. He continued to work for Sperry Rand for a while and then moved on to IBM. (Identical to my career path!) Lived until 1970 and died of natural causes.

I think there’s the seed of a really creepy psychic novel there, but either way, there’s a story in it, and that’s what I do. I write stories. This one happens to be my life story.

As I mentioned, my life in the ’60s included my wife, Pat, and me editing the fanzine Xero, which premiered at Pittcon, the 1960 World Convention in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. They say I’m credited with founding comic-book fandom … and then turning my back on it.

But I am still living and loving all of it, and haven’t died of natural causes — or any others — yet.

1. A Writer Writes

There’s an ice cream parlor in Oakland, California — Fenton’s. It’s been there since 1894. Some years ago a disgruntled former employee burned the place down, resulting in major community mourning. Also a major community celebration when the place was rebuilt.

Life is a series of such repetitious occurrences — some good, some … not.

I wrote a short story, 12:01 P.M., published in the December 1973 edition of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.

In this story I explored the concept of a time loop or a time bounce experienced by Myron Castleman, a New York executive reliving the same hour of the same day, over and over.

My story was at least twice adapted by Hollywood, first in 1990 as an Oscar-nominated short film starring Kurtwood Smith and directed by Jonathan Heap. It aired on Showtime in 1990 as part of the 30-Minute Movie anthology series.

The repetitious hour-long period in the film begins a minute past noon, just as in my story. As far as I know, the only purchasable version is on a compilation DVD released in the UK but it turns up now and then on late-night TV, or on various Internet sites.

From time to time people have interpreted my works in various ways. On one occasion a literature professor named Adrienne Marcus explained one of my time-warping stories to me. She’d been teaching the story in a college lit course and was particularly impressed by what she referred to as my skillful and creative use of multiple parallel imagery.

I asked her what she meant.

Oh, you refer to time as a series of concentric grooves like the grooves on an LP record, and you describe it as a row of ridges like drifting snow, and then —

I stopped her. Very flattering that you noticed. I’m afraid that the technique simply escapes most readers. Actually I’d had no such notion when I wrote that story. I wasn’t thinking about multiple parallel imagery or any kind of imagery. I was just writing a story. But in fact what Professor Marcus saw in the story, Saltzman’s Madness, was really there. She saw it. I didn’t.

But let’s get back to 12:01 P.M. When people ask about metaphor in my fiction I usually tell them truthfully that I have no such intentions in mind. A story is a story. A boxing match is a boxing match and a skating party is a skating party and there’s no symbolism intended. But in 12:01 P.M. there really was metaphor. I’d been working in the computer industry for twelve years and I felt that my life was an endless series of repetitions. It wasn’t an unpleasant life. I liked my co-workers and the company’s policies — after five years at Sperry I’d moved on to the industry leader, IBM — were remarkably generous and humane. But I wasn’t doing what I wanted to do, which was to write books.

And so I would get up each morning and dress like an ambitious young business executive, kiss my wife and children and head off to the office. My well-tailored suits and white button-down shirts and rep ties were all part of a disguise. And months would pass, and years would pass, and the thousands of days melted into a featureless gray sludge. And that was Myron Castleman’s life, as portrayed in 12:01 P.M.

Myron Castleman. My Castle Man. A man’s home is his castle. The man who lived in my castle. And who was that?

But now let’s head back to the future. The thirty-minute 1990 film is not to be confused with the feature-length television version of my story, starring Jonathan Silverman, Helen Slater, and Martin Landau. That’s quite a different story, and it’s based more loosely on 12:01 P.M. The longer film aired in 1993 on the Fox Network and won the 1994 Brussels International Festival of Fantasy Film Pegasus Audience Award, was nominated for the 1994 Edgar Allan Poe Awards/Audience Award for Best Television Feature or Miniseries category, and in 1994 won the Gérardmer Film Festival grand prize for video.

And by the way, nobody bothered to tell me about the film winning these honors two decades ago. My friend Audrey Parente discovered them and told me. Thank you, Audrey!

I appeared in both films as an extra.

A sort of copy-cat movie also appeared in 1993. The movie was … well, the idea I guess … well, I felt it was plagiarized from 12:01 P.M. The lead in that major theatrical film was a loveable superstar, and the film was produced by a major movie studio. Jonathan Heap, the writer/director of the short 12:01 P.M. and I, were outraged and tried very hard to go after the rascals we felt had robbed us. The similarity of the film to my story and Jonathan Heap’s adaptation brought on months of lawyering, but alas, the Hollywood establishment closed ranks. The fuss got us nowhere.

Other writers who had been ripped off by Hollywood producers had pursued the rascals and got satisfaction. These ranged from Harlan Ellison to Art Buchwald, but Jonathan Heap and I didn’t have the deep pockets that the fight would have required. After half a year of lawyers’ conferences and emotional stress, we agreed to put the matter behind us and get on with our lives.

But I really would prefer avoiding the bad memories. As John D. MacDonald once told me, If you get an offer from Hollywood, take the money and run!

Life did go on, and I remained in contact with Jonathan Heap and Kurtwood Smith. At one point, one of them mentioned in an email how they thought it might be interesting to try and figure out whatever happened to Myron after the first story ended. Did he just stay in his rut, repeating one hour over and over and over — endlessly? Or might there be an escape for him after all? I went to sleep that night with the question in my mind and woke up the next morning with the answer.

12:02 P.M. is a direct sequel to the 1973 story. Pardon my use of a lit’ry term, but in fact this was a metaphor for the lives of too many people in the modern world. It certainly reflected my own life at one time.

As 12:01 P.M. ended on a note of despair, 12:02 P.M. took up exactly where the previous tale left off, but, I believe, was a far more positive and hopeful story. I don’t want to go into details here. I’d much rather have you read the stories or see the films.

But I will say, from a creative viewpoint, I had to decide just when the new story would take place. After all, it had been 37 years since I wrote 12:01 P.M. I decided that 12:02 P.M. should continue the narrative seamlessly. Once I sat down and turned on my computer — Ha! I was tempted to rev up the ancient IBM Selectric I used to create 12:01 P.M. but decided not to do that — I slipped right back into the writing mode of the first story.

I’m an old New York hand, and even though I’ve lived in California for more than half of my 80-plus years, I had no problem with getting my head back into the Manhattan of that era. I’m convinced that You can take the New Yorker out of New York but you can’t take New York out of the New Yorker.

12:02 P.M. takes place on Vanderbilt Avenue, in the Public Library, in the Chrysler Building, and in Bryant Park. I had no problem revisiting all of these locales, seeing a copy of the old Daily Mirror, or eating in various midtown restaurants.

12:02 P.M. was published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (January/February 2011 edition).

I wrote another follow-up, 12:03 P.M. published in the September/October 2012 edition of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. And one of these days I’ll sit down and write 12:04 P.M. I’ve got most of it in my mind, Once I’ve added a couple more pieces, I’ll be ready to write.

Ok, so … I write.

2. A Family Legend

It starts with a mystery.

Clara Hirsch opened the package from America and out tumbled a series of glittering disks. She picked one up and examined it. It was a golden coin. An American dollar. She counted the gold dollars. There were nine of them.

Clara was fifteen years old. She lived with her family on a small farm. The Hirsch farm was on the outskirts of a village in Austria, not far from the Polish border.

Clara Hirsch was my maternal grandmother. The package had been sent from America by her cousin, Hyman Hirsch. It was the custom in those days for a male member of the family to emigrate to America, work, and save enough money to pay for the transportation of another family member. Clara’s Cousin Hy was the first member of the Austrian branch of our family to come to America. Clara was the second. I don’t know how many other Hirsches may have crossed the ocean. Clara did mention a Cousin Mollie in later years but I have no idea what became of her.

How many others died in the Holocaust I also do not know. However, many years later, my Cousin Eleanor sent me a heartbreaking photo of two small children standing side by side. They were my grandmother, Clara Hirsch’s, brother and sister. When Hy Hirsch sent those nine dollars to his Cousin Clara, they financed her journey to the New World.

What became of her sister and brother? I do not know. What were their names? I don’t know even that. I’m pretty sure that they perished in the Holocaust. I feel their loss even though my grandmother never told me that she’d had a sister and brother. Why not? I don’t know. Perhaps it was survivor’s guilt. Or maybe it was her private pain that she chose not to inflict on her grandchild.

With nine American dollars in her pocket, fifteen year old Clara Hirsch traveled across Europe, crossed the English Channel, found her way to the proper port, and bought a steerage ticket on a steamer headed for New York. When she arrived in New York, she told me in later years, Everybody was running around, waving their arms and shouting. Nobody understood what was going on. Nobody on the ship spoke English.

Clara’s Cousin Hy had come to meet the ship and the two cousins managed, somehow, to find each other. Clara asked Hy what all the excitement was about. He told her that the President had just been shot.

As nearly as I could figure out, the year had to be 1901. The date would have been September 6 and the wounded President was William McKinley, who lingered for eight days, then expired.

* * *

There are some problems with this story. I’ve tried to track down the details, and while the Ellis Island historical records do show Clara Hirsch, the facts are a little different from my recollections of my grandmother’s story.. According to these records, Clara Hirsch, age 19, arrived on the Red Star liner Friesland from Antwerp, Belgium, on September 4, 1894. Grover Cleveland was President on that day and he served two full terms in office, separated by four years of the administration of Benjamin Harrison. Clara’s nationality is given as German.

Is there any way to reconcile the story my Clara told me and the Ellis Island records? Were there two Clara Hirsches? Ellis Island lists only one. Maybe Grandma Clara’s recollections were confused or maybe my understanding, as a child, was jumbled. And to make things even more confusing, I can find no record of Hyman (or Hy) Hirsch or of Mollie Hirsch.

My heritage … can be anything, but I exist to create stories. So it’s my Clara story, and I’m sticking to it.

3. How I Found Myself

One of my earliest recollections is of crouching on the living room rug, peering over my brother’s shoulder as he read the Sunday funnies. Of all the features, I most vividly remember Flash Gordon. The splendid men and gorgeous women, all in their form-fitting costumes … the Art Deco cities with their graceful, sweeping vistas and their soaring towers … and of course the beautifully rendered spaceships and Alex Raymond’s dazzling imagery of outer space ….

But there was something missing. There were those little black marks that I knew were words. They were the words that told the story and they were the words that were being spoken by those splendid, glamorous people. And Jerry could read them (he was three years older than I) and I could not.

If ever anyone was driven mad by lust, I think I was … made mad or very close to it by the lust to read. I went on a campaign, demanding ceaselessly to be taught to read. I was told that I would learn when I started school, three years after my brother. I could not wait. I must have driven the rest of the household close to madness, too, until my wonderful Austrian-born grandmother yielded to my pleas and taught me to read.

I recall the event with great vividness. It was a lovely, sunny day, the household was (relatively) tranquil, and we sat down after lunch and Grandma simply showed me the letters and told me their sounds and explained that they went together and made words. That was all. By dinner-time I could read.

People have told me that this is impossible, that my memory must be grossly distorted if not outright false. But others have told me that they had the same experience — a pent-up desire to learn to