I have recently been reading Brian W. Aldiss’s autobiographical work titled Bury My Heart at W. H. Smith’s. (Smith’s is the largest chain of booksellers in Great Britain, not a bespoke graveyard, and the heart referred to is a metaphorical one.) The book wanders like a pleasant stream through green meadows and dark woods, just as a writer’s life does. People enter this life and leave; there are both good and bad times. But hovering over the physical life of its author are insubstantial spirits; the books and stories that have been summoned to life by this fascinating and talented writer. From life comes art; art becomes life.
From the outside a writer’s life might appear uncommonly dull. Rise in the morning and proceed to the study. Then with pen, pencil, typewriter, computer sit like a monk in a cell for long hours. The only movement the flashing or plodding fingers.
But it’s not like that at all. It is wildly exciting. The work on the page is reality, experience, knowledge, imagination transmogrified and transformed into art. Yes, art, the word should not be shied away from. Anyone can type “With a gentle sigh …” on a sheet of paper. But it ceases to be a typing exercise when supposedly wise publishers force money upon one for simply writing those words. It must be an art — a black one perhaps — that makes them do something like that.
I wrote those words in Mexico in 1956. Then in 1957 and 1958, in London, Italy and Long Island, New York, I added sixty-four thousand, nine hundred and ninety-six more words to these four. And John W. Campbell bought these words, paying three cents for each one, and published them as a serial in his magazine Astounding Science Fiction.
Within a year Bantam Books bought these same words again and published them as a paperback book entitled Deathworld. My first novel. There were more to come.
The reasons why I wrote this book are clear enough; science fiction has always been my pleasure and enthusiasm. But what on earth was I doing in Mexico? Not to mention London or Anacapri.
And thereby hangs the tale. Life becomes art; art becomes life. One shapes the other always, forcefully and immutably.
We lived in New York in an air-conditioned apartment. My wife, Joan, was a successful dancer and dress designer before devoting most of her time to the family and our son Todd and our daughter Moira. I was a successful commercial artist, art director, editor, writer.
But I was writing for money not pleasure. It was like being a prison guard or an elevator operator. You did it to stay alive, not because you enjoyed it. Only the fiction, particularly the science fiction, gave me any pleasure and sense of purpose.
But in those penny and two-cent a word days you couldn’t live by writing science fiction. You would have to write — and sell! — at least two stories a week to earn as much as a shoe salesman. Impossible! As for writing a novel, earning no money at all for one or two years, that was simply out of the question. Many writers have written novels in their spare time while holding down a regular job. I could not do it. It fitted neither my temperament nor my work patterns. Joan and I discussed the problem at great length and came up with what appeared to be an obvious solution.
I would quit my job, we would give up the apartment, sell the air conditioner, put all our goods in storage and drive to Mexico. Todd, aged one, did not seem bothered about the idea.
His grandparents thought quite differently. As did all our friends. Words like “insane” and “impossible” were muttered about and occasionally shouted aloud. Perhaps they were right.
We did it anyway. Padded the backseat of our Anglia Ford 10 to make a playpen, tied the crib to the roof, filled the trunk with our belongings and drove south.
The funny part is that it worked. We only had a bit over $200, but that princely sum went a long way in Mexico in the 50’s. We drove farther south still until the paved road ended, turned back and stopped at the first town. Cuautla, Morelos. We rented a house there, learned to speak Spanish, drank Tequila at 75 cents a liter, and employed a full-time maid at $4.53 a month. I wrote on a tiny screened balcony with a view of growing banana trees just outside. My magazine articles were selling well back in New York. The income from one sale, that might have bought a good meal and a night in the theater in the Apple, supported us in Mexico for a month. Once I was ahead on article sales, some short science fiction written and sold — I took a deep breath and started the novel.
Mexico was warm, beautiful and comfortable. But the social life was nonexistent and the tropics no place to bring up a baby. So after one year, rich with experiences, tan of skin and slightly more solvent, we drove back to New York.
And continued on to England.
