Home > Media > Books > Daniel Keyes - Algernon, Charlie and I: A Writer's Journey Plus the Complete Original Short Novelette Version of "Flowers for Algernon"
Daniel Keyes - Algernon, Charlie and I: A Writer's Journey Plus the Complete Original Short Novelette Version of "Flowers for Algernon"
jankp's Full Review: Daniel Keyes - Algernon, Charlie and I: A Writer's...
Daniel Keyes, best known for Flowers for Algernon, which I recently reviewed in its 1966 novel form, has finally put together a very readable, entertaining book about how his famous characters of Charlie Gordon and Algernon the supersmart mouse came to be. Always an avid reader from his youth, he promised his parents back in the early forties that he would only write as a hobby and pursue a doctor’s license, but after a brief, rather horrifying stint as a ship’s doctor in the Merchant Marines, he changed his mind and told them so. His parents weren’t mentioned again.
He met the right people along the way that got him started editing pulp fiction magazines, though he secretly studied the art for a week at the library and then secretly submitted his own attempts to science fiction magazines. Editors back then gave helpful, stinging criticism and Keyes kept plugging away at it while reading as much quality material as he could for inspiration. Galaxy magazine accepted a story and asked for another one, which was Flowers for Algernon in novelette form.
Here’s how Keyes described the beginning of his journey with the story:
There was that old, yellowed page from my first year at NYU with the line: “I wonder what would happen if we could increase human intelligence artificially?” I remembered my vision on the subway—the wedge that intelligence has driven between me and my family...
Okay, I’ve got the idea, and the plot, I thought, but I still don’t have the character with motivation.
I opened a more recent folder, turned several pages and saw the note:
A boy comes up to me in the Special Modified English class and says, “I want to be smart.” (Keyes had taught that and an honors class back to back)
Stunned, I stared at those pages, side by side. A motivation collided with a “What would happen if...?” pp 98
The novelette was quickly turned out in a fit of passion, at first called “The Genius Effect,” which Keyes helpfully included the beginning scene of. He struggled with it for only a few days and submitted it, but refusing to change his ending and Hollywoodize it, he had to find another publisher. We can read the entire novelette in the back of Algernon, Charlie and I: A Writer's Journey to see why it was finally accepted.
The journey with Charlie and Algernon was not over by a long shot. Flowers for Algernon became a teleplay for CBS and a movie was made, named Charly that starred Cliff Robertson in an Oscar-winning performance. Keyes finally landed a teaching position at Wayne State University in Detroit and decided he must expand his novelette because Charlie was still haunting him. He almost gave up from all the rejection, but he published it, getting the Nebula Award from The Science Fiction Writers of America.
Professional critics sent the book soaring after the first and only bad review, whereupon a stage play for amateurs and a musical that started in Canada, breezed through London with Michael Crawford and a dancing mouse, and ended in Washington. Keyes loved the last two with a teary-eyed passion, but was not able to make the Canadian performance. Finally in his Afterword, he related the news article he read in 1999 after finishing his manuscript of how a scientist “creates a smarter mouse; work on formation memory may someday help people.” He read online of its negative reception by others and asked the Princeton scientist, Dr. Joe Z. Tsien, for permission to be included in the Afterword.
Final Comments
I definitely prefer the novel form of Flowers for Algernon. The novelette was only the bare bones of it and didn’t move me really at all like the fleshed-out novel did. I enthusiastically recommend the novel and this story behind the story if you want to know who the heck is Charlie Gordon and Algernon.
Charlie began as that anonymous student who wanted to be smart, but becomes part of Keyes’ very soul. The life experiences that plagued Keyes’ sanity were healed without the psychiatrist he saw regularly for a long time. Giving the memories instead to Charlie released their power over him. He learned a lot from Charlie, he admitted, not only how to write, but how to see himself.
This book, of course, focuses on the impact Flowers for Algernon had on Keyes’ life for the past forty years, but in doing so it has left an impact on me, a struggling writer who would dearly love to write and publish a book that schools teach and will influence the way people think of the developmentally-challenged.
Keyes explained that he would not trivialize the book by explaining it. Thus, he showed (rather than told of) the process of creation from the melting pot of his life and how it took on a force of its own after publication.
For those who love to write and those who have been touched by the story of Algernon and Charlie, this book will inspire you with the courage, faith and talent that Keyes nurtured into fruition. Out of a compelling need to save his sanity. he will surely absorb you from the first to the 233rd page, from the first chapter "My Writing Cellar" to the 23rd chapter "And Then What Happened?" and the Afterword, as he did me.
In Flowers for Algernon, Daniel Keyes created an unlikely duo-a laboratory mouse and a man-who captured the hearts of millions of readers around the w...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.