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Fantasy. Fiction. Horror. Literature. Halloween Night, 1954. A young, film-obsessed scriptwriter has just been hired at one of the great studios. An anonymous investigation leads from the giant Maximus Films backlot to an eerie graveyard separated from the studio by a single wall. There he makes a terrifying discovery that thrusts him into a maelstrom of intrigue and mystery-and into the dizzy exhilaration of the movie industry at the height of its glittering power.Tags
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Having just finished Bradbury's Death Is a Lonely Business as 2017 came to an end, I went straight on to its sequel, A Graveyard for Lunatics, to begin the new year.
In a feat of love as much as verbal skill, Bradbury achieves cinematic magic on the unadorned page--much as his unnamed main character does as a Hollywood screenwriter.
LibraryThing lists this novel as book 2 in the "Crumley Mysteries" series, and I suppose you could call it that. But Crumley's presence is secondary at most. There is a mystery element to this story, all right, and Detective Lieutenant Crumley puts in an encore appearance, although again his role is more about moral support and reality check than it is about crime-solving prowess. Even in the thicket of his show more strange exotic garden, Elmo Crumley supplies the anchor that reminds us where the shoreline of fantasy stops.
But this novel is first of all a valentine to the movies and especially to the people whose vision and skills transform experience through their craft. It pays special tribute to special-effects man Roy Holdstrom, the fictional counterpart of Bradbury's close friend Ray Harryhausen, who is named in the dedication. Any film buff who dotes on the classics of early cinema should revel in this romp in the shadowlands between the real and the unreal. Although I'm not a true aficionado, with a library of collectibles and an encyclopedic knowledge of film history, I have seen a lot of old movies (some of them even before they were old), and I enjoyed Bradbury's evocation of the world beyond the guarded studio gates.
The tale involves the mysterious reappearance on Halloween night, 1954, of the body of a long-dead movie mogul whose twisted history still haunts the living, from a volatile studio executive to a gifted film editor to a paranoid fan whose only life is his obsession with movie memorabilia. The passion of creators for their creations is personified in the Harryhausen character and displayed across the spectrum of actors, directors, and other ancillary personnel, all of whom seem as touched by madness as the villains of the earliest horror pictures. The main character, who identifies himself as "the Crazy," follows a trail of hints and seeming coincidences to uncover an old secret as dark as any in the old black-and-white spookers of his own youth.
Even though I could see the solution coming, I enjoyed watching it play out against the permanently unreal backdrop of the motion picture world. show less
In a feat of love as much as verbal skill, Bradbury achieves cinematic magic on the unadorned page--much as his unnamed main character does as a Hollywood screenwriter.
LibraryThing lists this novel as book 2 in the "Crumley Mysteries" series, and I suppose you could call it that. But Crumley's presence is secondary at most. There is a mystery element to this story, all right, and Detective Lieutenant Crumley puts in an encore appearance, although again his role is more about moral support and reality check than it is about crime-solving prowess. Even in the thicket of his show more strange exotic garden, Elmo Crumley supplies the anchor that reminds us where the shoreline of fantasy stops.
But this novel is first of all a valentine to the movies and especially to the people whose vision and skills transform experience through their craft. It pays special tribute to special-effects man Roy Holdstrom, the fictional counterpart of Bradbury's close friend Ray Harryhausen, who is named in the dedication. Any film buff who dotes on the classics of early cinema should revel in this romp in the shadowlands between the real and the unreal. Although I'm not a true aficionado, with a library of collectibles and an encyclopedic knowledge of film history, I have seen a lot of old movies (some of them even before they were old), and I enjoyed Bradbury's evocation of the world beyond the guarded studio gates.
The tale involves the mysterious reappearance on Halloween night, 1954, of the body of a long-dead movie mogul whose twisted history still haunts the living, from a volatile studio executive to a gifted film editor to a paranoid fan whose only life is his obsession with movie memorabilia. The passion of creators for their creations is personified in the Harryhausen character and displayed across the spectrum of actors, directors, and other ancillary personnel, all of whom seem as touched by madness as the villains of the earliest horror pictures. The main character, who identifies himself as "the Crazy," follows a trail of hints and seeming coincidences to uncover an old secret as dark as any in the old black-and-white spookers of his own youth.
Even though I could see the solution coming, I enjoyed watching it play out against the permanently unreal backdrop of the motion picture world. show less
After the near perfection of Death is a Lonely Business, I was a bit put off by Graveyard. The story didn’t welcome me, seduce me, like the first one did. It ended much better than it started, but I think it was because of how intensely autobiographical the characters, and especially their interactions, were. It seemed like for every reference or allusion I understood, ten flew by me. Inside joke type things that I’m sure for Bradbury’s friends, were a treat to read. For us outsiders, it made the story very dense and the dialog quite opaque. I found myself rereading sentences, not because they were wonderful as Bradbury’s sentences usually are, but because I couldn’t figure out what he meant with the first pass.
Eventually show more though, the story found some momentum and intrigue and even though I pegged the big plot reveal way ahead of time, it was still interesting to watch and I have the third in the series, the deliciously titled, Let’s All Kill Constance at the ready. show less
Eventually show more though, the story found some momentum and intrigue and even though I pegged the big plot reveal way ahead of time, it was still interesting to watch and I have the third in the series, the deliciously titled, Let’s All Kill Constance at the ready. show less
In retrospect, besides the novel, I enjoyed two levels of bliss of ignorance while reading Ray Bradbury’s “A Graveyard for Lunatics”. First, I wasn’t aware that it was the middle book of a trilogy. Second, I didn’t recognize the people the book’s characters were based on, although I strongly suspected that “Fritz Wong” is about Fritz Lang. However not knowing the context of the book or the background of its people didn’t reduce the sheer fun it caused just reading it.
I found myself thinking that it was a simple guilty pleasure as I rarely read twisted mystery or detective novels. The characters and events were so over the top that I kept wondering whether it is a parody of a genre I am not familiar with. Couldn’t show more decide, but it didn’t matter, because by the time I dove into the question a whole new set of twists demanded my attention. If the measurements of a good detective stories include not being able to figure out whodunnit, not creating unrealistic coincidences to guide the storyline and getting caught up in the chase, then this novel is superb. If a good novel also supposed to have exciting turn of events, surprising yet theme appropriate locales then this book passes that test too.
It starts more or less on Halloween night of 1954. The unnamed narrator is a writer (and ex-autograph hunter) who just recently got his break in the film industry to write the script for horror B-movies. On that dark night he encounters the undead body of a film magnet next to studio in the cemetery. He and his friend (a special effect person specializing in gore) slowly solve the mystery of who that person was. In order to keep the mystery shrouded I will not share more of the storyline. Suffice to say it is a dark plot, similar to the kind the two friends were supposed to turn into movies. The noir feeling is so dark that the shadows of the book turned into hilarious for me. I couldn’t stop smiling or turning the pages as I read this fast paced thriller. show less
I found myself thinking that it was a simple guilty pleasure as I rarely read twisted mystery or detective novels. The characters and events were so over the top that I kept wondering whether it is a parody of a genre I am not familiar with. Couldn’t show more decide, but it didn’t matter, because by the time I dove into the question a whole new set of twists demanded my attention. If the measurements of a good detective stories include not being able to figure out whodunnit, not creating unrealistic coincidences to guide the storyline and getting caught up in the chase, then this novel is superb. If a good novel also supposed to have exciting turn of events, surprising yet theme appropriate locales then this book passes that test too.
It starts more or less on Halloween night of 1954. The unnamed narrator is a writer (and ex-autograph hunter) who just recently got his break in the film industry to write the script for horror B-movies. On that dark night he encounters the undead body of a film magnet next to studio in the cemetery. He and his friend (a special effect person specializing in gore) slowly solve the mystery of who that person was. In order to keep the mystery shrouded I will not share more of the storyline. Suffice to say it is a dark plot, similar to the kind the two friends were supposed to turn into movies. The noir feeling is so dark that the shadows of the book turned into hilarious for me. I couldn’t stop smiling or turning the pages as I read this fast paced thriller. show less
This is the first Ray Bradbury book I've ever read, and I've always known him as a sci-fi writer. So, to read a murder-mystery was not something I expected.
I enjoyed the twists and turns to the story, and the fact that he borrows ideas from his own life (his best friend was a stop motion artist much like Roy, and he had worked at a movie studio as a screenwriter when he was young) makes the story even more compelling. In fact, the writer is a self-insert of Bradbury; he just doesn't have a name.
Overall it took me a while to get into the story, but it is a short novella with a compelling twist (even though I did see it coming half way through) so I recommend it to murder-mystery fans!
I enjoyed the twists and turns to the story, and the fact that he borrows ideas from his own life (his best friend was a stop motion artist much like Roy, and he had worked at a movie studio as a screenwriter when he was young) makes the story even more compelling. In fact, the writer is a self-insert of Bradbury; he just doesn't have a name.
Overall it took me a while to get into the story, but it is a short novella with a compelling twist (even though I did see it coming half way through) so I recommend it to murder-mystery fans!
Second of three (?) novels Bradbury wrote in the mystery genre, inspired by his own experiences as a young writer. Here a young screenwriter and his friend "Roy" (a film stop-action miniaturist specializing in dinosaurs, obviously based closely on Bradbury's long-time real-life friend Ray Harryhausen) are drawn into a murder mystery on Halloween (Bradbury's favorite holiday). Several characters first introduced in his earlier quasi-autobiographical novel "Death is a Lonely Business" reappear here... good fun, if not necessarily the best work of Bradbury's illustrious career.
Chosen at random after hearing about his death. It took a while - almost 1/3 of the book - for me to care about the characters or what was happening. Set in Hollywood in the 50s. Stage lot next to a cemetery. "Once upon a time there were two cities within a city. One was light and one was dark. One moved restlessly all day while the other never stirred. One was warm and filled with ever-changing lights. And when the sun went down each afternoon on Maximus Films, the city of the living, it began to resemble Green Glades cemetery just across the way, which was the city of the dead."
Ray Bradbury shows that not only can he frighten us with short tales of the weird and fantastic, he can also spin a novel-length thriller that could hold its head high in the crowd of the hard-boiled.
This novel about a script writer for a Hollywood studio has some autobiographical elements (Bradbury himself has written some scripts in the 50s, and a character in the book is very similar to Ray Harryhausen, who is a friend of Bradbury's). I liked his evocative language, but the plot twists were somewhat predictable, and the characters were at times too far out... :)
This novel about a script writer for a Hollywood studio has some autobiographical elements (Bradbury himself has written some scripts in the 50s, and a character in the book is very similar to Ray Harryhausen, who is a friend of Bradbury's). I liked his evocative language, but the plot twists were somewhat predictable, and the characters were at times too far out... :)
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Ray Bradbury was born in Waukegan, Illinois on August 22, 1920. At the age of fifteen, he started submitting short stories to national magazines. During his lifetime, he wrote more than 600 stories, poems, essays, plays, films, television plays, radio, music, and comic books. His books include The Martian Chronicles, Fahrenheit 451, The show more Illustrated Man, Dandelion Wine, Something Wicked This Way Comes, and Bradbury Speaks. He won numerous awards for his works including a World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement in 1977, the 2000 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, the 2004 National Medal of Arts, and the 2007 Pulitzer Prize Special Citation. He wrote the screen play for John Huston's classic film adaptation of Moby Dick, and was nominated for an Academy Award. He adapted 65 of his stories for television's The Ray Bradbury Theater, and won an Emmy for his teleplay of The Halloween Tree. The film The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit was written by Ray Bradbury and was based on his story The Magic White Suit. He was the idea consultant and wrote the basic scenario for the United States pavilion at the 1964 World's Fair, as well as being an imagineer for Walt Disney Enterprises, where he designed the Spaceship Earth exhibition at Walt Disney World's Epcot Center. He died after a long illness on June 5, 2012 at the age of 91. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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- Canonical title
- A Graveyard for Lunatics
- Original title
- A Graveyard for Lunatics
- Alternate titles*
- La follia è una bara di cristallo
- Original publication date
- 1990
- People/Characters
- Roy Holdstrom; Fritz Wong; J.C. (Jesus Christ); Stanislau Groc; Doc Phillips; Manny Leiber (show all 7); Elmo Crumley
- Important places
- Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA
- Dedication
- With love, to the living: SID STEBEL, who showed me how to solve my own mystery, ALEXANDRA, my daughter, who cleaned up after us. GEORGE BURNS, who told me that I was a writer when I was fourteen.
And to the dead: RUBEN MAMOLIAN, GEORGE CUKOR, JOHN HUSTON, BILL SKALL, FRITZ LANG, and JAMES WONG HOWE.
And to ROY HARRYHAUSEN, for obvious reasons. - First words
- Once upon a time there were two cities within a city.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)"But who," she shouted, "is that half-naked woman!?"
- Original language
- English
- Canonical DDC/MDS
- 813.54
- Canonical LCC
- PS3503.R167
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
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