Becoming Ray Bradbury

24. Obsessed with Perfection

| 141| 5 24 Obsessed with Perfection In some ways, Bradbury’s public reputation was growing faster than he could handle psychologically. He now had a taste of the highpressure world of radio production, and he had attracted the attention of major market publishers, editors, and agents on both coasts. His September 1946 train journey to New York and back also opened up the world of transcontinental rail travel to him at a time when the wartime restrictions on transportation were disappearing and passenger rail service was regaining its appeal. A few months beforehistriptoNewYorkheboughtMaggieafirsteditionofTheHucksterstoshow her the world of trains and media hype that he was beginning to know.1 Frederic Wakeman’s best-selling “insider” story of a radio advertising executive’s rise and fall centers on the New York and Los Angeles entertainment hubs and two of the elite passenger trains that connect them—the Twentieth Century Limited between New York and Chicago, and the Super Chief between Chicago and Los Angeles. Bradbury had taken the less glamorous Southern Pacific passenger service for the western leg of his recent journey home, but in the years to come he became a great fan of Santa Fe’s Super Chief and its rival, Union Pacific’s City of Los Angeles. If the Super Chief (“the train of the stars”) symbolized his newfound ability to reach the Eastern literary markets in person, his continuing major market sales symbolized his growing popularity with mainstream editors and readers. In November, Martha Foley reprinted “The Big Black and White Game” in Best American Short Stories and included two other Bradbury titles in the volume’s Roll of Honor. Before the end of 1946, George Davis and Rita Smith bought “The Cistern”—Bradbury’s third sale to Mademoiselle in little more than a year. In early January, Harper’s bought “The Man Upstairs” for the upcoming March issue and ABC’s World Security Workshop aired his one-act radio play, “The Meadow,” on their national network. But he was still learning to handle himself in this new world, and he was trying to manage without the guidance of an agent. The lack of official representation in Hollywood was becoming a problem as well. Just before his New York trip, he was sought out by the King Brothers, who had parlayed their film projector manufacturing business into a B-level motion picture production company during the war years. In mid-August 1946 Maurice King wrote Bradbury with instructions to telephone him at his studio office; King, i-xvi_1-328_Elle.indd 141 6/27/11 2:51 PM 142 | the fear of death is death who had no idea that Bradbury still lived with his parents, had been surprised to find no telephone listing for the young writer.2 The King Brothers were interested in “The Lake,” but not as a feature film property;instead,theywantedtousethisstoryasanepisodeor,atmost,asacontinuing motif in Monogram’s The Gangster, a film centering on a declining crime lordwhosecontrolofthebeachfrontnumbersracketisslowlyslippingawayfrom him. Bradbury’s story of a young girl who drowns but seems to return years later to rebuild her little sand castle would no doubt have complemented the highly emotional psychological noir drama at the heart of the Daniel Fuchs screenplay, but this was not to be. Bradbury turned to Erline Tannen, Leigh Brackett’s agent, who had helped with the ill-fated Republic negotiations two years earlier, and asked her to make the call for him from her office at the Selznick Agency.3 She relayed Maurice King’s initial offer of $500 to Bradbury, who instructed her to counter with $5000 and not to go below $2000. The King Brothers found this position absolutely unacceptable—Monogram was marketing The Gangster for releaseasanA-gradefilmthroughUnitedArtists,andmoneywastight.Bradbury brokeoffnegotiations;aswelcomeasthemoneywouldhavebeenwhilecourting Maggie, he felt that he had to protect the potential option value of his stories even if he really didn’t know just what that value was. His own inexperience and lack of representation also played a part in this debacle, and he was thankful that Julius Schwartz was still circulating his new stories among the New York pulp editors. But Bradbury was sending fewer and fewer selections East, for he was gradually becoming obsessed with perfection. He worked the only way he knew how—by instinct, writing rapidly from sudden insights, often producing a story draft within a few hours, and always revising the entire work many times before circulating the result. It was not a formula that necessarily worked for others, and sometimes his convictions led...