The Literary Influences of Robert E. Howard: Pirates and Buccaneers by Todd B. Vick

Pirates and Buccaneers, their exploits, adventures, and duels, make a strong mark on many of Robert E. Howard’s stories. The sources for these inspirations are somewhat broad. There are nonfiction books about pirates, their history, their adventures and deaths that Howard read early in his life. Then there is the fiction Howard read that impacted his own stories with swashbuckling duels, high adventure, treasure hunts, and the like. All these pirate histories and fictional works played a pivotal role in Howard’s creation of various characters, especially his more famous Puritan duelist, Solomon Kane, and several Kane stories. 

At an early age Howard discovered and became fascinated with pirates and buccaneers. This is evident in T. A. Burns’ essay for the 10 July 1936 issue of The Cross Plains Review where she explained that a young Howard (likely age 12 or 13 at the time) proudly introduced himself and his dog to her (during one of her frequent outings to read and enjoy the outdoors) and declared that someday he was going to write pirate stories. There are any number of resources for Howard’s interest in pirates. The most difficult to determine are the books he read prior to the age of 15. But by age 15 and beyond, Howard mentions several works that fueled his passion for pirate tales. Howard wrote a brief essay for his English Class No. 3 at Cross Plains High school dated February 7, 1922. A few weeks prior he had turned 16. In this essay, Howard mentions that when he was younger, he read a Captain Kidd biography and various fictions about the pirate. These works enamored him. Here are Howard’s exact words: “Reading his [Captain Kidd’s] biography and fiction based on his eventful life, caused me to determine at an early age, to lead a life of piracy on the high seas. Tales of Blackbeard and Morgan clinched my resolve.” [Howard, Back to School, 271] 

Sometime later, Howard set aside his puerile notion of leading a pirate’s life after reading a different book. According to this same high school essay, the author’s name and the title of this other book escaped Howard’s memory. But he explained that this author “wrote an authentic book about piracy and by some means I secured it [. . .] and devoured it with avidity but was shocked to find that it contained a harrowing account of the deaths of Kidd, Blackbeard, and other noted gentlemen.” [Ibid.] Howard described, in his typical hyperbolic fashion and vivid detail, that the book contained a gruesome image of a known pirate, shortly after his execution, with a spike driven through his head. The contents and that illustration from the book caused Howard to reconsider his vocational desire of piracy on the high seas. It did not, however, deter his passion for pirate tales. In fact, it probably fueled it. 

Howard began reading pirate tales from around the age of eight or earlier. One of the earliest works Howard experienced in the literary crafting of high adventure is Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island. Apropos to Howard’s interest or maybe even the cause, Stevenson’s tale is about buccaneers and buried treasure. What more could an impressionable boy desire than to be a buccaneer who uses a map to find buried treasure? Stevenson’s story ignited young imaginations around the globe. And that motif lasted for more than a century, first in fiction and later in films. Howard jumped on this creative bandwagon in multiple ways. In fact, his poem, “Flint’s Passing” is an homage to Stevenson’s story and characters, Captain Flint and Long John Silver. But what about that authentic account mentioned in Howard’s essay, that spurned his notion of living the pirate’s life? 

Illustration by Pyle

It is anyone’s guess what book Howard is referring to. I recently spent several weeks online searching for pirate books that might have matched Howard’s description, but also discovered books he may have encountered that further ignited his passion. I found several. The first is written by Howard Pyle, the popular late nineteenth century pirates and buccaneers aficionado (and illustrator), titled The Book of Pirates (1895). While perusing the contents of Pyle’s book, I realized it was not a strong contender for the book Howard mentioned in his essay. None of the images matched the one Howard mentioned (a pike through the head of a pirate). However, Pyle’s book has a chapter titled, Jack Ballister's Fortunes. The name Jack Ballinster is strikingly close to Howard's character Jack Hollinster from “The Blue Flame of Vengeance.” All things considered; Pyle’s book could be one of the biographical accounts Howard indicated he read that influenced his notion of being a pirate on the high seas. And it is possible that Pyle’s book influenced Howard’s Solomon Kane fiction, especially based on Pyle’s illustrations. 

I came across another book that I thought might be a contender: Captain William Kidd And Others of the Pirates Or Buccaneers who Ravaged the Seas, the Islands, and the Continents of America Two Hundred Years Ago by John Stevens Cabot Abbott (1876). The contents of Abbott’s book is close to what Howard described in his essay, “it contained a harrowing account of the deaths of Kidd, Blackbeard, and other noted gentlemen.” [Ibid.] Some of the illustrations where gruesome for their day, and this image was toward the back of the book but did not depict exactly what Howard described.

Illustration from Abbott's Captain William Kidd

While I was poring over pirate books, I began corresponding with Howard scholar Rusty Burke. I told Burke about my research for this article and he immediately turned a light switch on. He said he had done something similar some time ago and the best book he could find that fit Howard’s description was The Pirates Own Book: Authentic Narratives of the Most Celebrated Sea Robbers by Charles Ellms (1837). The contents matched and in the middle of the book is an image of the head of Benavides stuck on a pole (below).

Renegades and Rogues: The Life and Legacy of Robert E. Howard by Todd B. Vick

This Tuesday (January 19) , my book, Renegades and Rogues: The Life and Legacy of Robert E. Howard  hits the shelves in bookshops around the world. It is the first comprehensive biography of Robert E. Howard published by a major academic press (The University of Texas Press). It is a cumulation of three years of research and writing devoted solely to the book, 18 years of scholarly research and writing (articles and blog posts), and 40 years of being a reader and fan of Howard's work. 

There are several reasons I wanted to write this biography: 

This book is something I had been planning on doing since 2002, but back then I was ill-prepared to take on the task. There was so much more research I needed to do, so much more reading, uncovering of Howard's family and life. So, I dug my heels in and pushed forward and devoted my time to the task of researching and writing a biography. 

To date there has not been a biography about Robert E. Howard from an academic press. Moreover, there is a need for a biography that benefits both fans and scholars. And when I say scholars, I mean the use of available reliable sources, with notes that students and writers can use in their own research. I thought it was also important to take advantage of the advancements of the publication of Howard's collected letters, the letters of other pulp writers about Howard, and other materials. All this was paramount to me writing Renegades and Rogues. I also felt that an objective examination of Howard's life, from birth to death, with an emphasis on the external factors that not only affected his life but his work was needed. I knew from the start I was writing about real people, with real flaws, real struggles, and issues that everyone could relate to. My research and sources had to be present to give the work the academic foundation it needed. 

Renegades and Rogues establishes a solid foundation for current and future fans and scholars providing them with an objective, unexaggerated, unromanticized examination of Robert E. Howard's life and work. It includes the vast amount of new data that has been uncovered over the last ten years presented on blogs with limited readership. I also spent months poring over interviews of the people from Cross Plains and other local areas who knew the Howards. What were they saying? How consistent were their claims and memories? I then incorporated this information in the book. These are intriguing firsthand interviews that help illustrate the larger picture about the Howard family and in particular Robert E. Howard's life.

Some of the questions I asked myself while I was researching this biography include, what events did Howard experience that caused him to write what he wrote? How did his formative years play a role in his stories? What influences did his parents have on him? What made Howard tick? What got him out of bed in the mornings? How did the publishing markets move him to write? What directions? Why did he write what he wrote? And, if he had lived, what direction was Robert E. Howard headed with his writing? All these questions and others I attempted to answer.

The first three chapters of the monograph focus on the Howards' familial history, their travels from Robert's birth up to their move to Cross Plains. I apply this information to not only Howard's personality, but to his work as well. I then discuss Howard's education, his friends and their influences on him, and how his correspondence with friends and other writers moved him and his works in various directions. I examine Howard's 12-year publishing career (with an emphasis on his historical period), the market in which Howard published and how that market directed his stories. I take a look into his relationships, especially with Novalyne Price (Ellis), but I did this from her perspective and how she explained her encounters with Robert and his parents. I examine a select amount of Howard's stories and provide cursory exposition and commentary about those stories. I also examine Howard's most famous character, Conan the Cimmerian, and the publishing career of that character in great detail. I do all this and much more.

Because the book is published through an academic press, my initial manuscript draft was read by peer readers who basically took the manuscript, examined it, broke it down, and then sent it back to me for revision and improvement. This process vastly improved the direction and content of the book. Once the initial review was corrected, it went back out to several other peers who did the same. The first two peers who examined the manuscript were S.T. Joshi and Karen Kohoutek. Both provided me with wonderful feedback. The second group remained anonymous, and we discussed what was necessary to change during this final phase of editing. Due to this process the book's research, sources, and content were scrutinized and improved upon. I'll not lie here, this process was somewhat painful and arduous, but in the end it vastly improved the monograph. 

All the above should give you a good idea as to the whys and wherefores of Renegades and Rogues. I hope that those who know only a little about Howard (but perhaps know more about his characters, especially Conan) will find this book helpful in understanding the man behind all these wonderful stories. I also hope that the seasoned Howard fan or scholar will benefit from these pages as well. That was my goal in writing this book. I sincerely hope you enjoy it and that you learn more about Robert E. Howard and his work.

Here is a book trailer for the biography:

Early reviews of the book:

“Todd B. Vick surveys the entire panoply of Robert E. Howard's times and life. Early twentieth-century Texas, so important to a young writer who almost never crossed its borders except in the mighty treads of his imagination, becomes a player in the action fully as much as Conan or Solomon Kane—and Renegades and Rogues is a truly outstanding biography because of it. The book is a terrific read that will grab you like the brawny iron arms of Khosatral Khel and not let you go.”

—Roy Thomas, former editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics and author of the Conan the Barbarian comic

“Renegades and Rogues is a compelling read. Vick does an outstanding job in portraying Howard’s family life, in describing the major incidents of his literary career, and especially in providing insightful details into the remarkable resurgence of Howard’s work in various media after his death.”

—S. T. Joshi, author of I Am Providence: The Life and Times of H. P. Lovecraft

The book can be ordered at your local independent bookstore or online at:

The University of Texas Press

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

What’s in a Name?: Discovering the Origin of Solomon Kane’s Name by Todd B. Vick

 

In early 1935, Robert E. Howard sent a letter to his friend Alvin Earl Perry. In this letter, Howard briefly delineates the origins of his popular characters: El Borak (Francis Xavier Gordon), Bran Mak Morn, Solomon Kane, King Kull, and Conan. For some of these characters, this is the only place Robert explains their creative origin. With such scant information given, we are left to piece together other aspects of their origin from other various sources and historical data. In the case of Solomon Kane, here Howard explains that he created the character when he was in high school, at around age sixteen. Nothing further is provided except this explanation: “[Solomon Kane] was probably the result of an admiration for a certain type of cold, steely nerved duelist that existed in the sixteenth century.” (CL 3.287)  

Solomon Kane (Ken Kelly)

Howard’s admiration for a cold, steely nerved duelist stems from a number of likely sources, most of which come from his reading of Rafael Sabatini, coupled with Rudyard Kipling’s, Arthur O. Friel’s, and H. Rider Haggard’s swashbuckling sword duels and jungle settings. A more detailed look into Howard’s influences and the creation of Solomon Kane are in the upcoming biography Renegades and Rogues. For now, let's leave those details alone in this article, since those elements present Howard’s use of those writers, the development of the character, and their stories to create the settings, sword-play, and various plot devices used for his Solomon Kane stories. But what about the name, Solomon Kane? Where did Howard come up with his character’s name? What details do we know about that?

There has been some previous speculation about the dour Puritan’s name. Howard never explains in any letter or essay how he conjured Solomon Kane's name. At a previous Howard Days, it was suggested that the name was a combination of two Biblical people: King Solomon, the wise and wealthy, if flawed, Hebrew King, and Cain, an aggressive but pious murderer. Howard did enjoy several Old Testament stories, though he was partial to Saul, the first Hebrew King (CL 2.208), and the story of Samson. With regard to King Solomon, Howard told Lovecraft in a June 1931 letter that he lost interest in Biblical history after King David, calling Solomon “a typical Oriental ruler.” (CL 2.208) While there is likely more to unpack in the notion that Solomon Kane is a combination of King Solomon and Cain (changed to Kane), the idea is novel, but ultimately seems to be a bit of a stretch. It’s possible that Howard may have used Dr. Solomon Chambers’ first name. Dr. Chambers was a friend of the Howards who practiced medicine with Dr. Howard in and around the Cross Cut and Burkett, Texas area. But there is still too much uncertainty as to why or where Howard derived the ‘Kane’ portion.

Recently, Kurt B. Shoemaker’s zine, “The Happiest Blue Elephant,” was published in PEAPS (The Pulp Era Amateur Press Society). In Shoemaker's zine there is a section titled “‘Sir Piegan Passes’ by W.C. Tuttle.” (PEAPS #31, 15 June 2020) In this section Shoemaker discusses Tuttle’s story (“Sir Piegan Passes”) that was published in Adventure 10 August 1923. Shoemaker summarizes Tuttle’s story and explains how it was used for several silent films during Tuttle’s early writing career. Shoemaker also details each film based on “Sir Piegan Passes.” Whether Shoemaker realized it or not, he dropped a small bomb on the history and speculation about where Howard may have derived the name Solomon Kane. “Solomon Kane’s heart would, if properly broken up, have made a number of perfectly good arrowheads. His conscience, if properly cut to certain lengths, would have made any number of perfectly good corkscrews. Outside of that, Solomon Kane was normal.” (Adventure XLII.1.121)  

Adventure  (10 August 1923)

When Tuttle’s story was published in the August 10, 1923 edition of Adventure magazine, Howard had been reading the magazine for approximately two years. Tuttle’s story published when Howard was just seventeen, near the age he declared (about sixteen) when he claims he created Solomon Kane. Tuttle’s character, Solomon Kane, is used pretty much throughout the story. What are we to make of this? Is it a mere coincidence that Tuttle and Howard concocted the same name for a character? It seems possible, but unlikely. Howard certainly read W. C. Tuttle’s works; his personal library contained almost a dozen Adventure magazines with Tuttle’s stories in them. Is it possible that Howard created his character around age sixteen but had not yet established a name for him? Then along comes Tuttle's "Sir Piegan Passes" providing Howard with a name. It is quite conceivable that Howard did, in fact, read Tuttle’s story from this issue of Adventure.

Howard loved Adventure, he declared on several occasions it was one of his favorite magazines. Moreover, several authors who immensely influenced Howard’s own work were regulars in Adventure: Talbot Mundy, Harold Lamb, and Rafael Sabatini. Howard would have gone out of his way to read these author’s stories. And, two of them (Talbot Mundy and Harold Lamb) appeared in the August 10 1923 Adventure along with Tuttle’s story. Add this fact to the fact that reading material was so scarce in and around Cross Plains, Texas, that Howard was prone to read everything he could get his hands on, and read it thoroughly. The implication here is that if Howard owned this magazine, he would have read it from cover to cover.

There are vast differences between Tuttle’s and Howard’s Kanes. Tuttle’s story, “Sir Piegan Passes” is a western. Tuttle’s Solomon Kane is an assayer in Micaville, who is less than reputable and does his best to swindle people by misrepresenting their gold and mineral weight and values. This is a far cry from the dour Puritan we all know, who exacts his own retributive justice on those who take advantage of the helpless. Frankly, I think the name Solomon Kane is better suited to Howard’s character than Tuttle’s. But perhaps this is merely my own bias toward Howard’s Solomon Kane stories. Howard was certainly no stranger to lifting ideas from authors he enjoyed reading. He also re-used names of characters for stories (e.g. the various Steve Costigans, Conans: the Reaver and the Cimmerian, etc.). It was common for Howard to use foreign words in his own stories that he found in Adventure magazines. So, lifting the name of a character used in a story from Adventure should not surprise us. That being the case, the likeliest scenario is that Howard read Tuttle’s story, liked the name Solomon Kane, possibly wrote it down and earmarked it for his own character.  

Adventure cover (10 Aug. 1923)

It would not be a surprise if Howard refrained from using the name Solomon Kane to see if Tuttle would ever include his own Solomon Kane in another story. While this is speculation, it is interesting that Howard’s Kane would not see print until five years, to the month, after “Sir Piegan Passes” was published in Adventure. And as far as can be determined, Tuttle never used his Solomon Kane character in any of his subsequent stories. If this is the case, it raises a question. With the popularity of Weird Tales, how is it that Tuttle never said anything about Howard’s Solomon Kane? It is possible that Tuttle never read Weird Tales magazine? Perhaps he did not care for those kinds of stories. If this is the case, he may have never known that Howard used the name Solomon Kane. It is also possible that Tuttle knew that Howard used the name and he simply did not care. Whatever the case, Tuttle never kicked up any dirt over it.

Howard was a thoughtful writer, not prone to taking words, names, and other ideas from the sources he read and giving them no thought as to how he could use them. With Howard’s Solomon Kane, there is a certain amount of development that went into the character. It took half a decade before the character was created, named, developed and then placed on the printed (and published) page. His thoughts and ideas had time to percolate. He had time to add and change things when he needed, and he likely continued to develop these ideas even after Solomon Kane came alive for the reading public. But as for where Howard discovered the name Solomon Kane, Tuttle’s story certainly plays an integral if not the pivotal part.

While it is not definitive proof, it is certainly highly credible that Howard got the name for his character from W. C. Tuttle’s story, casting a shadow over the idea that Howard combined two biblical people into one name, or that he may have borrowed Dr. Solomon Chamber’s first name. With this new information, all the quintessential elements for the nomenclature of Howard’s Solomon Kane come together almost to a fault. Perhaps we can now put to rest further speculation about the origin of Solomon Kane’s name, until further information is discovered.
______________________
Works Cited
CL             Collected Letters
PEAPS      The Pulp Era Amateur Press Society
ADV         Adventure

[Special thanks to Bobby Derie for his input on this article]

The Literary Influences of Robert E. Howard: Arthur O. Friel by Todd B. Vick

Adventure June 3, 1921

Adventure magazine played an integral part in Robert E. Howard’s life as a writer (and reader). According to Howard, he discovered the magazine on a summer evening when he had “exhausted all the reading material on the place.” (CL 3.87) He apparently walked to downtown Cross Plains and ventured into one of the shops (possibly Higginbotham or one of the local drug stores; he never reveals the locale), and discovers the magazine on the rack. The stories in Adventure dazzled him so much he continued to purchase the magazine for years.

As best as I can determine, the Adventure magazine Howard purchased that summer evening was most likely the June 3, 1921 issue. The issue featured two writers who would make a lasting impression on fifteen-year-old Howard: Arthur O. Friel and Rafael Sabatini. Both writers are similar in style and content (e.g. swashbuckling sword fights, etc.), though the settings of their adventure stories are worlds apart; many of Friel’s stories are typically set in South America (Amazon/Brazil) and Sabatini’s in various different locales. Howard would utilize (and mimic) both writer’s style. From Friel, Howard borrows vast jungle settings, from Sabatini Howard borrows rapier sword duels (and other things). Sabatini also fueled Howard’s passion for pirate stories. We will examine Rafael Sabatini’s influence on Howard in a future post. For now, let’s turn our attention to Arthur O. Friel.

That June 3 1921 issue of Adventure was most likely the first time Howard had encountered Arthur O. Friel’s work. Friel’s story “The Barrigudo” was in that issue. After this first encounter with the magazine, Howard indicated that he continued to purchase Adventure for years, when he could afford it. By fall of 1921, October the 10th to be precise, Howard began reading Friel’s four-part series “The Pathless Trail.” The subsequent parts appeared in these issues of Adventure: October 20 (part 2), October 30 (part 3), and November 10 (part 4). This series and other stories by Friel would be paramount for Howard’s stylistic prose for several of his Solomon Kane and his latter adventure fantasy stories (e.g. Conan) stories.

Arthur Olney Friel

For sheer adventure in faraway uncharted Amazonian jungles, Friel was the consummate writer for Adventure. In fact, he had quite a large readership. Friel’s descriptive prose and quick paced action narrative would apply a deep brand on Howard’s early published works.  Now, back to Friel’s four-part series “The Pathless Trail.” I chose this series by Friel because Howard indicated that he read it (REHB appendix 2), and to a large degree, Howard mimics Friel’s narrative style and structure in several of his Solomon Kane stories. Howard uses this style and structure throughout his career in various places until he perfects it and places his own stamp on it, coupling it with his own signature prose rhythm and pace. He then uses it later in his Conan stories. This style also influences Howard’s writing voice throughout his publishing career. There are a handful of writers who influenced Howard in this fashion, and Friel is one of them.

The columns below show the similarities between Friel’s and Howard’s use of language, description, style, and sentence structure.

“Day by day the downflowing jungle river pushed steadily, sullenly against its prow, as if striving to repel the invasion of its secret places.” From Friel’s “The Pathless Trail”	“He gazed at the huts, wondering why the thatch roofs of so many were torn and rent, as if by taloned things seeking entrance.” From Howard’s “Wings in the Night”
“The bushman turned at once and stole away. The others turned the canoes, transported the necessary duffle to the base of the hollow tree, made camp, and squatted against the trunk to smoke, watch, and wait. Several times they heard calls receding in the distance. Then came silence.” (Ibid)	“When all were buckling from exhaustion. The sun dipped, night rushed on, and a halt was called. Camp was pitched, guards thrown out, and the slaves were fed scantily and given enough water to keep life in them – but only just enough.” From Howard’s “The Footfalls Within”
“Worming around gigantic columns, crawling over rotting trunks, changing directions abruptly when blocked by some great butt too high to be scaled, sinking ankle-deep in clinging mud, the venturesome band wound along through the wilderness. The general trend of the march was southeast, but impassable obstacles encountered at frequent intervals necessitated not only detours, but sometimes actual backtracking.” (Ibid)	“The littoral of the great river altered. Plains turned into swamps that stank with reptilian life. Where fertile meadows had rolled, forests reared up, growing into dank jungles. The changing ages wrought on the inhabitants of the city as well. They did not migrate to fresher lands. Reasons inexplicable to humanity held them to the ancient cities and their doom.” From Howard’s “Queen of the Black Coast”

These examples demonstrate that Howard, as a reader of stories and writers he loved, paid attention to what he was reading. Friel’s influence on Howard’s early and later writing style is certainly present in these three examples. There are a host of other examples between the two writers, but these three examples work well to drive home my point.

            A use of hearty pronouns to vividly describe landscapes and action in each of their stories was frequently utilized. In fact, the language and style between the two writers was fairly common among pulp writers. The writers who stood out among the hundreds of pulp writers from this era are, however, the ones who not only utilized these techniques, but chose their words carefully to help control their story’s pace, creating a much better tone and rhythm. Even though other pulp writers like Friel influenced Howard. Howard stood out due to his signature prose, distinct writing voice, and his ability to astutely control the pace of his narrative, taking hold of his reader and pulling them through the scenery and action. In other words, Howard took what he liked in Friel’s work, made it his own, and then wrote better and far more enduring tales.

The Pathless Trail
Time-Lost Series
Centaur Press, 1969

            With all this in mind, it’s interesting that Arthur O. Friel is mentioned only once in all of Robert E. Howard’s letters. In a letter to Carl Jacobi from the Summer of 1934, Howard declares, “I was much interested to note that you are acquainted with Arthur O. Friel. He has been one of my favorite authors for years.” That’s it, one simple statement indicating that Howard had read Friel’s work for years and that Friel was one of Howard’s favorite authors. We have certainly seen why this is the case. Interestingly, Arthur O. Friel never broke free from Adventure magazine into the wider publishing community. Although, in 1950 he managed to publish a collection of his stories from Adventure. Some of these same stories were republished in 1969 by Centaur Press for their Time-Lost series. It’s worth noting that three of the volumes in this same Time-Lost series from Centaur Press are Robert E. Howard collections containing several Solomon Kane tales and fragments. The two writers certainly complement each other in this series and, Howard would be proud to know his work was published in a series of works that included one of his favorite writers, Arthur O. Friel.

Works Cited
CL           Collected Letters
REHB     The Robert E. Howard Bookshelf
The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane     Del Rey, 2004
The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian   Del Rey, 2003
The Pathless Trail   Centaur Press, 1969

The Literary Influences of Robert E. Howard: Robert W. Service by Todd B. Vick

From a very early age Robert E. Howard loved poetry. This was in large part due to his mother and her passion for verse. From the time Robert was born, Hester Howard recited poetry to her son. So naturally, Robert grew to love poetry. And there were a number of poets who influenced him as a reader and a writer. One such poet was Robert W. Service. His work loomed large in its influence of Robert E. Howard.

Robert W. Service

Service was born on January 14, 1874 in a small village named Preston, in Lancashire England just 20 or so miles northeast of the port town Liverpool. Service began writing poetry at an early age, heavily influenced by these Victorian poets: Tennyson, Browning and Keats. Several of these same poets, along with Robert W. Service played an integral part in influencing Howard’s verse. Service eventually moved to Canada, and settled in the Yukon territory. It took Service a bit of time to get his poetry published. Frankly, most poems and/or poets never make a living at their craft. With little success as a writer, to support himself Service took a job as a banker in the Pacific Northeast at the Canadian Bank of Commerce. All the while, he continued to write. Eventually Service managed to secure a publisher in London for his first collection of verse (Songs of Sourdough), published in 1907.

In the United States, Edward Stern and Company of Philadelphia published the same volume under a different title, The Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses. This volume gained a large amount of readers in the early twentieth century. Robert E. Howard owned the United States edition of Service’s first collection, and he particularly enjoyed “The Shooting of Dan McGrew.” In fact, this poem eventually became one of the most memorized in the United States a few years after its publication. A few years later another collection by Service, Ballads of a Cheechako, garnered almost equal success as The Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses, and Service was able to quit his job at the bank, write full-time and travel.

The Spell of the Yukon
and Other Verses
1907 edition

Robert W. Service’s influence can clearly be seen in many of Howard’s own poetry. Their rhyme and meter, heavily influenced by the Victorian poets, was similar. And among Howard's close friends, in particular Tevis Clyde Smith, Service's poetry was highly praised. According to Post Oaks and Sand Roughs, [Tevis Clyde Smith] Clive, considered Robert W. Service the greatest poet of all-time. Steve [Robert E. Howard] declared that Service was second only to Rudyard Kipling. [POSR, 74] Due to its content, Service’s poetry was ripe for the working class. This is likely one of the reasons Howard and Smith liked it. Without much sophistication, Service was able to delineate the common man and their struggles in his verse. Moreover, the content of many of Service’s verse was about frontier life in the Canadian Yukon, gold rushes, and man’s toil to survive. Of course, Howard loved those topics making Service’s verse resonate in his own imagination. Service’s poems were about the simple, ordinary life, and Howard especially liked this. In fact, on one occasion Howard told Lovecraft: “My tastes and habits are simple; I am neither erudite nor sophisticated. I prefer jazz to classical music, musical burlesque to Greek tragedy, A. Conan Doyle to Balzac, and [Robert] Bob Service’s verse to Santayana’s writing, a prize fight to a lecture on art.” [CL 3.66]

After his death, several of Service's books were present in Howard's personal book collection and donated to the Howard Payne College library; titles such as The Pretender, Ballads of a Bohemian, Rhymes of a Red-Cross Man, and The Spell of the Yukon and Others. Some of these books are now displayed in a bookcase at the Howard House and Museum in Cross Plains, Texas.

Works Cited
CL           Collected Letters
POSR      Post Oaks and Sand Roughs (Grant edition)

The Literary Influences of Robert E. Howard: James Branch Cabell by Todd B. Vick

Now that I have a bit more time to blog, I’ve decided to do a series about certain writers Robert E. Howard encountered in his life. Each post will cover one author whose work had some kind of influence on Howard’s life (as a reader) and/or his own work (as a writer). To inaugurate this series, I’ve chosen James Branch Cabell.

James Branch Cabell

Cabell was born April 14, 1879 in Richmond, Virginia, to an affluent family of medical doctors and politically connected Virginia ancestors. Because of this, Cabell was raised in what many believed to be an aureate environment. At fifteen, Cabell was enrolled in the prestigious College of William and Mary. He graduated four years later at age nineteen. Even then, Cabell was a master wordsmith and linguist, with a strong command of several languages. So much so, he taught French and Greek courses as a nineteen-year-old. He later became a journalist and began writing short stories and essays for Harper’s and the Saturday Evening Post. The latter being the most likely place Howard first encountered Cabell’s work. Cabell would eventually write novels, of which Jurgen: A Comedy Of Justice (1919) would be one of his most popular.

Cabell’s work has ebbed and flowed in popularity over the past century. When Cabell was alive and writing, H. L. Menken and Sinclair Lewis held the esteemed writer in high regard. Predominantly popular with the reading public of the 1920s and 1930s, Cabell wrote fantasy fiction, fictional satire, and was a master writer of essays written primarily for their aesthetic effect.; the latter likely being the main reason Menken enjoyed Cabell. Simply stated, Cabell was a wordsmith of the highest order. To be such and reach the masses required a near perfect balance between the common and highly sophisticated, a balance not easily reached by too many writers in literary history. This is also probably the reason Robert E. Howard enjoyed Cabell’s work, though the two writers are diametrically opposite in their styles and interests. Cabell’s sophisticated humorous sexual innuendos are what Howard most likely enjoyed.

             Cabell had little influence over Howard as a writer. Howard's humorous fiction was never as elaborate or as sophisticated as Cabell's, but much more low-brow and jocular; a slapstick style like the vaudevillian performances. The only time Howard ever emulated Cabell’s style was when he wrote his so-called book review of Cabell’s Something About Eve for The Junto. Besides the Junto, other places Howard’s review can be found is Amra volume 2, number 47 (August 1968), The Conan Grimoire (Baltimore: Mirage Press, 1972), and The Spell of Conan (New York: Ace Books, 1980).  In the Junto review, Howard assumes that the other Junto participants may have not heard of James Branch Cabell. He wrongly assumes this because he thinks that Cabell is not widely read. That might have been the case in the central Texas area of Cross Plains, but it was certainly not the case among  the broader population of readers in the United States and around the world. Cabell was, in fact, a quite popular author at the time Howard wrote his review of Something About Eve.

1927 edition, illustrated by
Frank C. Papé

In his review, Howard calls Cabell the ablest writer of the present age. Along with many other readers back then, Howard was seized by Cabell’s command of the English language. Something About Eve is Cabell at his finest. But Howard is especially attracted to Cabell’s cynicism, something to which Howard could relate. Cabell pokes fun at his own art, his readers, and the world in general. In Something About Eve, his sardonic humor is communicated through a nineteenth century romance gone awry that bores the protagonist so much he quickly acquiesces to the devil’s invitation of a wild promiscuous adventure elsewhere. In his Junto review, Howard’s focus is not on the plot or events of the Cabell’s novel so much as on the sexual innuendos, the way women are presented in the story, and Cabell’s linguistic prowess. In his review of Something About Eve, Howard attempts to emulate Cabell’s linguistic style. As far as I’ve been able to determine, this is the only place Howard does this. It’s uncertain which edition Howard reviewed. If it was the Robert M. McBride & Company 1929 edition, illustrated by Frank C. Papé, Howard would have delighted in the illustrations and likely mentioned those in his reviews. But he did not, so there’s no telling which edition he read.

In reading Howard’s collected letters, there are two letters where Cabell is mentioned. The first, is a humorous poem (“A Fable for Critics”) Howard sent to his Brownwood friend, Tevis Clyde Smith (CL 1:272). In it, several writers are mentioned in a comical way. Cabell is mentioned, knees knocking, embarrassed at the modern school (of writers) who drank and whored. On a second occasion, in a February 14, 1936 letter (Valentine’s Day) to Novalyne Price, Howard responds to Price’s struggle with a Cabell book she was reading. Howard indicates that he has not read that particular work by Cabell, but asks her to wait a few days until he can visit and go through the book with her. (CL 3:420). The title of Cabell’s book Price is struggling with is not mentioned. But it is interesting that Howard is confident that he can help her understand its contents. This would imply that he believed he had read enough of Cabell’s work to communicate confidently his ability to understand its contents.

 In late 1934 or early 1935, Howard was still buying Cabell’s work. In fact, on a date with Novalyne Price, they drove to Brownwood to visit Dublin’s Bookstore. Howard had his eye on a different edition of Omar Khayyam's The Rubáiyát. Being one of his favorite stories, he already had one copy, but this edition offered something the other, perhaps, did not. In addition, Price indicated that Howard also had his eye on a book by Cabell (OWWA, 92). She does not indicate the title of Cabell’s book, but this tells us that Howard was still actively buying and reading Cabell. Price was introduced to Cabell’s work through Howard and, on one occasion, she was apparently arguing with her cousin Mary Enid Gwathmey, likely about the sordid content of a Cabell book, which was interrupted by Gwathmey’s realization that Price was ill and had no business teaching that day. (OWWA, 123) Nothing else is said about Cabell, but this indicates that Price, probably because of Howard, was reading Cabell’s work.

1927 illustration by Frank C. Papé for "Something About Eve."

I have not been able to ascertain any indication that Howard was so influenced by Cabell that his own writing style and sentence structure changed in any of his own stories. Even so, Cabell did play an important role in Howard’s passion for literature, at least of a certain kind. The strongest indication of this is clearly seen in his review of Something About Eve. After Howard’s death, Cabell’s popularity slowly waned, especially once the second world war began. However, by the late 1960s and early 1970s, with the advent of The Ballantine Adult Fantasy series, spearheaded by Lin Carter, James Branch Cabell made a brief but relatively strong resurgence in popularity. The Cabell titles chosen by Carter for The Ballantine Adult Fantasy series included: The Silver Stallion (August 1969), Figures of Earth (November 1969), The High Place (February 1970), Something About Eve (March 1971), The Cream of the Jest (September 1971), Domnei: A Comedy of Woman-Worship (March 1972). Though there are likely other titles by Cabell that Howard read, the titles we know he read include: Something About Eve and The Cream of the Jest. The latter book was part of the Howard Payne University holdings, books from Robert’s personal collection given to the college by Dr. Howard after his son’s death.

I can’t help but wonder if Howard, despite his claims that he wrote for a paycheck, and the restrictive markets he was (in a sense) chained to, secretly desired to write on a level equivalent to Cabell. Among other authors, Howard pays Cabell some of his highest praise. And though Howard, likely to save face for some silly argument, disagreed with H.P. Lovecraft's opinion that writing could be considered a form of art, Cabell was probably the one writer who might have changed Howard’s mind on that opinion.

Works Cited
CL                The Collected Letters of Robert E. Howard
OWWA         One Who Walked Alone

El Borak the Swift & The Iron Terror by Todd B. Vick

"Listen while I tell you the secret of the Iron Terror." [ASF 232]

Vintage Robot

In a 1935 letter to Alvin Earl Perry, Robert E. Howard explained that Francis Xavier Gordon (a.k.a El Borak), was the first character he ever created. Howard admitted that he could not recall the character's genesis, but declared that the character came to his creative mind at the age of 10. It would be years later before the character would ever see the printed page. Though it wouldn't be due to a lack of trying.

Howard began submitting stories to magazine as early as 1921, at the age of 15. He mostly submitted stories to the pulps he was reading at the time: Adventure, Western Story, Argosy All-Story, and even Weird Tales (as early as 1922).  This was, to say the least, quite ambitious for a 15 year old. Especially considering that several of these magazines published seasoned writers like H. Rider Haggard, Arthur O. Friel, Harold Lamb, H. Bedford-Jones, Talbot Mundy, and Rafael Sabatini. But Howard didn't stop there. Shortly before "Spear and Fang was published in 1924, Howard sent a story titled "The Iron Terror," to Cosmopolitan, one of the well-known slick magazines of the day. The story was rejected, Howard couched it and, as far as we know, never submitting it again to another magazine.

This was the first El Borak story Howard submitted for publication. During this early stage of story submissions (and rejections), Howard really did not know what he was doing. He would write a story, place it in an envelope and mail it off. It's likely that he never considered the type of story that a magazine like Cosmopolitan considered for publication. In those early days, Howard's publication behavior was like a kid tossing wet paper towels against a wall and hoping one stuck. "The Iron Terror," was simply tossed at the wrong wall.

At this stage in his writing/publishing career, Howard was honing his writing skills in school newspapers. In fact, he was receiving a strong local following in those papers, along with much praise. And while I am speculating here, had "The Iron Terror" been submitted to Weird Tales, even under the watch of then hard-nosed editor, Edwin Baird, it's quite possible the story might have been picked up by the magazine. I suggest this because during this time the magazine's founder J. C. Henneberger was keeping a fairly close eye on what was being submitted. I find it difficult to imagine that even if Edwin Baird might have rejected the story because he did not care for science fiction, had Henneberger caught sight of it, it might have landed a spot in one of those early issues. Of course, we will never know.

"The Iron Terror" is a nice work of historical science fiction. In my estimation, it is one of Howard's more mature early stories. It is a much better story than "Spear & Fang." Closer examination of "The Iron Terror" reveals that Howard put a lot of thought into its contents and plot. Between 1922 and 1924, Howard was perfecting his ability to control the pace of his narrative. "The Iron Terror" is a wonderful example of this. Howard also sets the tone of the story by beginning the narrative in a storm. While this practice has become pedestrian in today's literature and is now frowned upon, back in 1922, almost 100 years ago, that was not the case. In the opening paragraph, Howard's use of imagery is fantastic.

"Outside the wind roared, snatching up the snow, whirling the flakes high in the air. The streets were deserted except for a few belated pedestrians hurrying home, heads bowed against the gale." [AFS 225]

The reader is drawn into the struggle of the weather, and understands that it is snowing without being told it is snowing. This is a nice demonstration of showing and not telling in the narrative. Moreover, whether this was deliberate on the part of Howard or not, he bookends this story with struggles: one is the weather, a common phenomena, the other a man-made inadvertent antagonist gone awry. The former helps serve to heighten the intensity the latter. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's jump back to the story's narrative and content.

The Carnival, The Girl, and The Smitten Teenager by Todd B. Vick

“There were many women in the brief life span of Robert Ervin Howard. And yet there were few.”—Harold Preece, Fantasy Crossroads, vol.1, no. 3, May 1975

Novalyne Price
1927 yearbook photo
Daniel Baker College

Often when fans think of Robert E. Howard and women, images come to mind of Bêlit, Valeria, Yasmina, or any other number of female characters Howard created. Some may think of his mother, who devoted her time and life supporting her son. Perhaps more ardent fans (and Howard scholars) wonder if the notion that he had relations with a prostitute in Mexico is, in fact, true. There does seem to be strong evidence for such. There is also the “Sunday school girl” Howard discussed with his colleagues in The Junto. Someone Preece admits they all were worried could possibly have tied Howard to a conventional “churchy woman.” (Preece 21) Maybe some fans think of Novalyne Price Ellis, who dated Howard for several years toward the end of his life. Whatever the case, perhaps only a handful of Howard aficionados and scholars recall the carnival girl whom a smitten Howard encountered at the tender age of 15.

There is next to nothing written about the events of Howard’s life at age 15, when he visited a carnival, perhaps local to Cross Plains but maybe elsewhere, and encountered a female carnival worker. Apparently, she was like a strong west Texas dust devil scurrying across the plains, who immediately swept Howard up, if only from a distance. Howard never mentioned this girl in his letters, to anyone. Moreover, one of his closest friends, Tevis Clyde Smith, who had written somewhat extensively on Howard’s life, never mentioned her in any of his writings. In fact, none of Howard’s closest friends or correspondences who have written anything we have copies of (e.g. essays, letters, interviews, articles, etc.) ever mention this girl, except one—Harold Preece. 

In the May 1975 issue of Fantasy Crossroads (book three volume 1), contains an article by Harold Preece titled, “Women and Robert Ervin Howard.” In this article, Preece discusses a private conversation he had with Howard in Cross Plains when Preece visited the Howards at their home, just six or so years after the carnival experience. Preece explains:

The full—yet awfully thin, story—came out during the one weekend that I spent with the Howard family. The year was either ’28 or ’29. I can remember the fondness with which Mrs. Howard gazed at her maverick son—but, also, the graciousness with which she treated me as a guest knowing her Dallas nieces, Maxine and Lesta Ervin. She would have undoubtedly known the nice Sunday school miss. But probably this conventional matron had never heard of the carnival girl. (Preece 21)

The idea that Mrs. Howard likely knew nothing about the carnival girl is probably correct. There were various things Howard kept from his mother, some out of embarrassment to himself, and others if for no other reason than she might get upset.[1] And like all of us do, he experienced things he simply wanted to keep to himself. Even so, Howard confided in his friend regarding the carnival girl.

           

Preece provides no description of the girl, which likely means Howard may have never given one. So, what she looked like is lost. In Preece’s article, he attempts to interpret why Robert may have been smitten with this girl. “Carnies—a wild breed—interested him because they lived free of the rules that govern solid home folk.” (21) At its core, this idea is very Howardian, but its not likely the whole reason Howard may have been taken in by her. “He stood there spellbound when he saw her moving around the midway.” (21) Other than a particular beauty that a 15-year-old Howard may have favored, how could this carnie girl have captured young Howard’s immediate attention? Preece surmises that, “she would have been easily identifiable as a ‘despised show woman’ in any of the little towns played by the rambling carnival. By her cosmetics and her hairdo —eyed jealously by inhibited local ladies—by her lascivious walk and her general air of not giving a damn about not being a nice girl.” (21) Preece certainly paints an interesting picture of Howard’s telling of the circumstances. One can easily see why Howard might like her since she smacks of everything he may have found appealing: different, mysterious, free, beautiful, and an uninvited kind of character that Howard was fond of incorporating into many of his stories.

            It is not known whether this carnival (or fair as the case may have been) was a local event or an itinerant show. It is not likely that the show was local, like the annual fair and rodeo held in Cross Plains nearly every summer and typically sponsored by someone such as the local Fire Department. If that were the case, this carnival girl may have been a local girl, unless they hired outside workers to come in and help. There was such an event in Cross Plains on July 21-22, 1921 and a write up about it in the July 29, 1921 Cross Plains Review. But Preece’s retelling of Howard’s experience does not seem indicative of a local event. No, it seems closer to an itinerant carnival or an out of town event. It is also possible that this carnival may have been in a larger town, like Abilene or Brownwood, and the Howards traveled to attend it. In fact, back in 1921, both Brownwood and Abilene hosted various carnivals and fairs in their respective towns. The American Legion held several rodeos/carnivals in Brownwood,[2] and Abilene hosted a traveling carnival that is still in existence today.[3] It would not have been unusual for the Howards to have traveled to either town, especially since Mrs. Howard had at one time lived in Abilene and the Howards also knew people in Brownwood.

            Whatever the case may be, a 15-year-old Howard spotted this girl, and being taken in by her, he watched her until she “disappeared behind a tent with a man—likely another carnie—for whom she had probably been waiting.” (22) According to Preece’s recollection, the girl’s occupation at the carnival was not known. She was likely spotted by Howard somewhere on the midway, perhaps close to the gaming or show booths.

She may have been a dancer—maybe the mistress of the character who “barked” the show. Or she could have been a shill for one of the “pitches” stepping up to make a fake purchase of some dubious ware to attract customers not getting their money back. She might have been a gypsy or just some Midwest girl gone wrong.

     Whoever or whatever this sensuous wench, she made a lifelong impression on an already impressionable 15-year old boy. (22)

After she disappeared behind the tent with one of her fellow carnies, Howard did not see her again. Taking this account into consideration and given the fact that Preece recalls that Howard was quite taken by this girl, one wonders whether he incorporated her into any one of his numerous female characters. Preece thought Howard might have done just that. “Subconsciously or otherwise this actual maverick woman may have been his model for all the fantasized ones due to be born of his ripened talent, years later.” (22)

            It is at least interesting to imagine that Howard may have used his memory of her for a female character for, perhaps, one or more of his Conan yarns. Could she have been the model for a blonde-haired mercenary named Valeria? Or could she have been the woman in “The Frost-Giant’s Daughter,” whose “body was like ivory to his [Conan’s] dazed gaze . . .” (Howard 32) Perhaps Howard used her as the model for Bêlit, who was “untamed as a desert wind, supple and dangerous as a she-panther.” (127) There are any number of possibilities where Howard may have used her. Or it may be that he simply kept her to himself, choosing to tell only his friend, Harold Preece, perhaps in an attempt to make her real again in the telling. Whatever the case may be, she certainly left an indelible impression, and I for one, am glad that Harold Preece chose to share Howard’s experience with his fans.

Works Cited

Howard, Robert E. The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian. New York: Del Rey, 2003.

Preece, Harold. "Women and Robert Ervin Howard." Edited by Jonathan Bacon. Fantasy Crossroads, May 1975, 20-22. (Volume 1, Number 3)

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[1] In one of Howard’s letters to Clyde Smith, Howard attempts to avoid writing a biography about himself for The Junto, for fear certain things about himself might get back to his mother (CL3.487-488)

[2] See The Cross Plains Review, Vol XII, No. 11, May 20, 1921.

[3] In Abilene, Texas a city fair was established in 1881, which later became a county fair, and eventually became The West Texas Fair and Rodeo. By 1921, this fair in Abilene would have been a county fair with an itinerant carnival coming in to set up its show.

This article was originally posted at James R. Schmidt's blog: MightyThorJRS

Chris Offutt's Book, My Father, The Pornographer: A Book Review by Todd B. Vick

My Father, The Pornographer: A Memoir
by Chris Offutt
Atria Books 2016

(Because this review discusses two Offutts, when necessary I use first names to distinguish between father and son, this is not intended to be disrespectful, just a means of distinction.)

If you grew up in the 70s or 80s and were a fan of fantasy fiction, there is a good chance you either heard about or read Andrew J. Offutt’s work. Offutt was a prolific science fiction and fantasy author. Fans of Robert E. Howard and his characters Conan and Cormac Mac Art, have likely run into Offutt’s popular pastiches for both these characters. In fact, Offutt was admittedly an ardent fan of the pulp magazine Weird Tales, and an unabashed fan of Robert E. Howard’s stories. When Offutt was not writing pastiches, he busied himself with writing his own fantasy novels, predominantly sword & sorcery, but also science fiction. His output was noteworthy, he published 30 works in the genre. However, Offutt’s sci-fi/fantasy work is grossly paled by his work in the erotica publishing industry.

Andrew J. Offutt died April 30, 2013, at the age of 78. His eldest son, Chris, inherited his father’s desk, rifle, and, according to Chris, eighteen hundred pounds of pornographic fiction. When his father died, Chris was left by himself to sort through the remaining vestiges of his father’s life. Chris’ siblings made it quite clear they wanted nothing to do with their father’s business, stories, or his legacy. That being the case, Chris spent the following year, with a little help from his mother, poring through his father’s belongings, sorting and organizing what remained. He details what unfolded during that time, nostalgically and emotionally, in a 2016 memoir titled My Father, The Pornographer, which quickly became a New York Times Bestseller. Despite the title, Chris spends more time in this memoir trying to come to terms with his father’s verbally abusive and unloving behavior than he does discussing his father’s pornographic/erotic work. As Chris sorts through what remains of his father’s life, he slowly discovers and discusses why he thought his father was incapable of having meaningful relationships, with anyone.

It was not an industry secret that Andrew J. Offutt wrote erotica and porn. Other writers in the science fiction and fantasy publishing industry were doing the same, all to make more money. Often the two genres would cross over. Andrew was known for mixing erotica with science fiction (e.g. Spaceways). In fact, his Conan pastiches are, in many ways, more sensual than the other writers in that arena. Be that as it may, regarding his father’s work, Chris maintained a steady focus within each specific genre as he discussed them, only mentioning the crossover works when he details various “personas” or nom de plumes his father used. And, according to Chris, those various personas revealed an aspect about his father he never fully understood until after his father’s death.

Andrew began writing porn when his son, Chris, was a child. He finished reading an erotica novel, tossed it on the coffee table, and loudly complained that the author did not know how to write. He boasted that he could do a much better job. Seeing his frustration, his wife challenged him to sit down and do just that. Andrew took the challenge personally, and, in the words of his son, “the rest is pornography.” Chris points out that he was constantly reminded that his father began writing porn to pay for his kid's needs, but this reminder was too often accompanied by a declaration of how Andrew wished his own kids had never been born. Something Chris spent years trying to come to terms with. Chris also details how he pored through boxes of his father’s manuscripts, categorizing them by genres and then specific topics. His method was meticulous and well thought out, based on genre, subgenre, and works that were something of an anomaly. He was careful to highlight that his father’s writing, and personal collection was utterly void of “kiddie porn,” something for which he felt great relief. The idea he might run across some while sorting through the collection had apparently been in the back of his mind.

While delving into his father’s pornographic/erotic works, Chris never declares that the porn was responsible for his father being an overbearing verbally abusive husband and father. He does, however, reveal how the porn might have been an extension of his father’s deeply troubled psyche, especially his jaded and disturbed attitude toward women. As the memoir unfolds the reader discovers Andrew’s hidden life and how, on several occasions, he confided with Chris that the porn kept him from becoming a serial killer. On the surface this sounds absurd, but Chris ponders whether the porn his father wrote did, in fact, kept those so-called demons at bay, or did his father merely say that to justify the works? It is not until the end of the memoir that Chris reveals the truth of his father’s claim and the psychological torment Andrew was apparently suffering. At that point, the question is answered when Chris reveals a hidden box he discovered among his father’s belongings, buried behind the desk. A box that Andrew declared was his “great secret.” It had always been hidden from his family. Even Mrs. Offutt, who knew more about her husband’s “secret life” than anyone, had no idea this box existed. What Chris reveals about this secret of secrets is both painful and insightful, bringing to light a few answers to aid him in his own struggle to understand his father. It also uncovered the degree of anguish and torment his own father might have endured.

The book is not solely about abuse, pain, and anguish. On a much lighter note, Chris spends several chapters discussing his father’s writing career in the sci-fi/fantasy publishing industry. It is here that Chris reveals some of his favorite memories. As a child, he recalled reading through his father’s collection of adventure stories from authors such as Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert E. Howard, Alexandre Dumas, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Daniel Defoe. Chris also recalled the science fiction/fantasy conventions his family attended and the various personas his father would portray at each convention. There are interesting stories about his father’s relationship with other popular sci-fi/fantasy writers, such as Piers Anthony. And, Chris reveals an embarrassing moment at the Hugo Awards where Andrew usurped the introduction he was supposed to give for the guest of honor by rambling on about himself.

Throughout the book, stories are divulged about Andrew’s idiosyncratic behavior toward insignificant things that would set his temper aflame. Things such as the ratio of air to chip content in a certain potato chip company’s bags. To appease his anger regarding what he interpreted as the company slighting their consumers, Andrew wrote a letter to the company arguing his case and expressing his disgust. In response, they sent him a case of potato chips. Overall, the book is written with concise and emotionally moving prose. Chris has a way of peeling back his father’s veneer and dissecting his behavior in a delicate and poignant fashion. This certainly draws his reader into the narrative. Because of this, I found myself loosing track of time, often unable to put the book down.