From My Shelves – A Graveyard For Lunatics

From My Shelves is a series of occasional posts that look at items from my personal collection to which I have a special attachment.

A Graveyard For Lunatics by Ray Bradbury (1990) – This book combines several of my great loves, which is one very good reason to find it in my personal collection.  First, Bradbury is one of the great American writers of the 20th Century, in my humble opinion.  I don’t believe he gets the love and respect he deserves.  More on that in a moment.  The second is that the book is centered in Hollywood.  The action is anchored in the fictional Maximus Films lot.  A murder mystery will usually grab my attention as well so it’s a great combination for me.

The story follows a young man who loves the movies and the people who make them.  He stood outside the gates at Maximus, looking to add to his collection of autographs.  Over the years, he has become a familiar face to some and made friends with a few.  Eventually, he became a writer and was allowed to pass within.  Maximus backlot abuts a cemetery, and the action bounces between the two.  The world of illusion standing next to a world with no illusions is a wonderful setting for the mystery.

All of this draws from Bradbury’s own life.  He was an autograph collector and wrote for Hollywood for a while as well.  Several other characters are based on friends from the movies.

Bradbury offers us his usual tight storytelling and a deep sense of time and place.  While many people may remember “Fahrenheit 451” from their high school or college reading list, I’m not sure the general reading public recognizes his place among American writers.  His work is acclaimed and with good reason.  Bradbury wrote science fiction, horror, mystery, and fantasy.  His 1957 novel “Dandelion Wine” is as fine an evocation of small town life at the beginning of the 20th Century as anything I’ve ever read.

Bradbury holds a special place for me.  If pressed for an author whose work I admire above all else, I would choose Bradbury.  The greatest compliment I could ever imagine as a writer would be to be told that my writing reminded the reader of him.  Maybe someday.  While he is held in high regard by many, I’m not sure how many folks would think to include him among the great American authors of the 20th Century.  It’s an honor I believe he deserves.  Yet he is sometimes brushed aside as a “genre author”.  It’s a form of literary elitism that I dislike intensely.  Bradbury is simple a brilliant writer.

It’s always great to start the year off with new books from Christmas, so we begin with this one.  There are two other books that involve the same characters, which are wonderful as well – “Death Is A Lonely Business” and “Let’s Kill Constance”.