mrsbluejay's review against another edition
4.0
Autobiographical notes about Keyes' life and especially the history of 'Flowers for Algernon'. The book provides a lot of information about the way Keyes went about writing his critically acclaimed novelette and later novel. For me it was a most welcome addition to reading 'Flowers for Algernon'.
nwhyte's review against another edition
http://nhw.livejournal.com/998329.html[return][return]This is a really good, short account by Keyes of the genesis and later history of his classic story, Flowers for Algernon. There are quite a lot of insights into the writing process - I was very interested in his depiction of writing as therapy, as a means of distancing yourself from difficulties you have had in the past by putting them in your fiction. It's very interesting to read of the various roots of the story - Charlie himself based on a student in one of Keyes' classes who asked to be made clever, much of the scientific background based on Keyes' own frustrated interactions with pyschologists and therapists.[return][return]Keyes was much more connected with the 1950s sf crowd than I had realised, and they gave him good advice - to cut the original story by over a third to get it published, for instance. Originally there was going to be a framing narrative, of Charlie's lover finding his diary at the start and resolving to look for him at the end, but that was cut at quite a late stage too. Keyes is graphic about the pressure he was put under, but (thank God!) successfully resisted, to provide a more upbeat ending, pressure which continued into the TV and movie versions of the story. Nonetheless, he himself feels the ending is ambiguous rather than necessarily tragic; I don't think I agree.[return][return]Keyes wrote several other books and stories, but none has had the critical success of Flowers for Algernon. I was slightly surprised that he betrays no resentment at all that his subsequent efforts have not been regarded with the same veneration as his earliest work. But I suppose if I'd written Flowers for Algernon myself, I would feel it was success enough for a lifetime.
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