Nat Segaloff

The Exorcist Legacy: 50 Years of Fear by Nat Segaloff is a comprehensive and enjoyable read about the history of the entire Exorcist franchise (though in some ways franchise doesn't fit).

Segaloff, who also wrote a biography of director William Friedkin, offers both details about all of the iterations of The Exorcist as well as ideas/theories about why it had such an immediate impact as well as a lasting presence. From interviews to looking at other types of research, we get a well-rounded show more view of the phenomenon that is The Exorcist legacy.

Like so many people, I am a fan of the initial movie as well as the book. In fact, this is one of the few cases where I actually prefer the film, but I do like the book as well. I first saw the movie when I was 15, and the big screen experience was startling. Reading some of the ideas behind why the reactions many people have are so extreme helped me understand why I didn't have quite that strong of a reaction. Even for my 15-year-old self, it didn't infringe on either my view of the world or my comfort in my belief system, so while it did impact me when I first saw it, I neither got sick nor got angry. I simply enjoyed the entertainment. It wasn't until the movie was included in a couple of film courses that I started understanding the bigger picture. And that is what this book offers the reader, the bigger picture, shown through many of the smaller details.

Whether you're a big fan of one of the forms the story has taken in popular culture, a movie lover in general, or just someone who enjoys reading about major pop culture phenomena you will find plenty to enjoy here. Well written and researched, this is informative and enjoyable.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley. show less

“You have picked a difficult subject for a biography.” - Robert Silverberg

Love him or hate him, Harlan Ellison was one of the most prolific and awarded writers of all time and influenced many who came after him, myself included. To quote one of Harlan’s closest friends, writer Josh Olson (A History of Violence), “Harlan is the guy who made me want to become a writer.” Same here, Mr. Olson.

I found A Lit Fuse to be a wonderful companion piece to much of what I’d already known show more about Harlan from interviews, articles, his Sci-Fi Buzz segments, YouTube videos, and Erik Nelson’s excellent documentary, Dreams with Sharp Teeth.

There were events and experiences in Harlan’s life that author Nat Segaloff glosses over and for which details can be found elsewhere (such as in the aforementioned sources). Then there are other aspects that are more thoroughly explored in Harlan’s personal and professional lives such as the making of A Boy and His Dog, his experiences on the 1980s Twilight Zone series, writing the screenplay for I, Robot based on Isaac Asimov’s novels, the Dangerous Visions anthologies, his disastrous marriages before Susan, and the illnesses that slowed him down later in life.

If Harlan Ellison is a difficult subject for a biography, that might be partly due to his reputation as a quarrelsome and cantankerous firebrand, but it’s also because Harlan’s life was replete with so many amazing experiences that it’s nigh impossible to encapsulate all of them into anything shorter than a tome or a multi-volume series. Nevertheless, Segaloff does an admirable job of presenting the human being behind the legend. show less

Two coincidences influenced my reading of this book. The first is that Harlan Ellison died about three weeks before I began reading it, making me aware of how little I'd read of his work (the only complete book being the I, Robot screenplay). The second is that a week before I began it, I was perusing the archives of the Science Fiction Research Association Newsletter, where I found this comment by Bob Collins in a 1988 issue: "In the case of especially prickly authors like Harlan, the price show more of an 'authorized' critical biography may well be the total compromise of the critic's integrity." Now, A Lit Fuse specifically disavows being critical or a biography; it's more like an autobiography, as Segaloff primarily strings together a number of interviews he's done with Ellison into a narrative of sorts, and doesn't really do a lot to render other perspectives on Ellison, or have any kind of objective stance. Segaloff is clearly a big admirer of Ellison, and his faults are usually rendered in an admiring way, too. Which is fine, I guess, but this book as a result, this is definitely more a book for the Ellison devotee than the general sf fan. All that said (and there's many more quibbles one could make; I thought the depiction of the incident where Ellison allegedly grabbed Connie Willis's breast was particularly poor), I was still pretty much entertained throughout. Ellison knows how to tell a story, and even if many of them aren't true, or put him in an inaccurately flattering light, I enjoyed reading the book. It's not a great book, and possibly not even a good one, but it is interesting enough. show less

Alternately interesting and sloppy, you'll end up knowing more about the Exorcist than perhaps you care to know, especially where its sequels are concerned. The real interest here is in getting to know the prime movers behind the original Exorcist, author William Peter Blatty and director William Friedkin a little better. Although they had their differences, clearly each had a vision that carries forward into the classic original film. Blatty himself went on to direct a couple of show more sort-of-sequels based on his other novels, all of which, according to this account, are about providing the existence of god through the existence of evil. I'm not sure this thesis really holds up, but it does appear to represent Blatty's belief. The book suffers from haphazard construction, and it seems some things were just added a random. Sections near the end dealing with the just-released (2023) new Exorcist film are just promotional material. show less