The Essential Bradbury (2018)

Plot Synopsis:  David and Alice Leiber welcome their first-born child into the world, but Alice quickly becomes convinced something sinister is at play. She senses that her newborn son is resentful for bringing him out from the safety of the womb into the cold, stark world. Alice becomes increasingly paranoid, convinced her evil child wants to kill her.

Critique: When I teach this story to my college classes, students invariably either absolutely love it, or can’t suspend their disbelief at the outlandish concept of a homicidal infant. But this is supernatural horror, so, really, what do the naysayers expect? Readers accept Cthulhu but not a diaper-clad killer?

In my estimation, “The Small Assassin” is early-gothic Bradbury at his creepy best. The story hits many of the themes of classical gothic literature—isolation, dread, descent into madness, and grotesquery—while managing to be a completely fresh and new spin on the genre’s tropes. Written in 1945 when he was just 25 years old, Bradbury was extrapolating the then undiagnosed mental health issue of post-partum depression and looking at it through the lens of horror. Decades before the evil neonatal cinematic classic, Rosemary’s Baby, Ray Bradbury had created the murderous infant tale. “The Small Assassin” also shows Bradbury’s increasing mastery at crafting dark, slowly mounting suspense.

The Autobiographical Connection: Wait…a story about a baby wanting to kill his mother has autobiographical roots? As with most Bradbury stories, the answer is, most decidedly, yes! Let me endeavor to explain: One of the more fantastical tales Bradbury told about his own life over the years was claiming to recall his own birth.

“I was a ten-month baby” Bradbury told me in an interview. “When you stay in the womb for ten months, you develop your eyesight and your hearing. So, when I was born, I remember it.”

 In the late 1940s, Bradbury startled his own mother one day by phoning her to tell her of his birth memory. The details her son recalled were uncanny in their accuracy, the color of the room and the placement of the windows, the number of attending physicians and nurses, and much more

Whether Bradbury truly recalled his own birth, or his singular imagination had created a false memory, is unclear. Science, of course, tells us that an infant’s mind is not developed enough to recall birth. But Ray’s response to a scientist who once pointed this argument out was: “I was there, were you?

Either way, Bradbury’s recollection of his birth gave him the idea for “The Small Assassin.” His birth memory instilled in him the philosophy that a baby lives in a comfortable, aphotic universe for nine months (more or less) and, at the end of this period, is rudely, forced out into an all-new, unknown and cold reality. Bradbury purposed that the child in the “Small Assassin” was resentful of his mother for giving birth to him.

So, there you have the autobiographical origins of “The Small Assassin.”

When I travel and speak about Bradbury, fans often ask if I believe that he really remembered his own birth. When I first met Ray in May of 2000, he told me his birth story, and, like many, I was skeptical. I believed that he had imagined his birth, convinced himself that the memory was real, subconsciously constructing his own myth. But after spending thousands of hours with Ray, growing to know him, as he said, “better that he knew himself,” I am now convinced that Ray Bradbury did, indeed, “remember being born.” His memory of the tiniest details of childhood were certainly like none I have ever encountered. His memory was photographic and encyclopedic. He was also a genius.

Unknown Nerd Detail: The parents in “The Small Assassin,” are named Leiber. The doctor who delivered Ray Douglas Bradbury into the world on August 22, 1920 at 4:50 in the afternoon (Yes, he missed “4:51” by one minute!) was also named Leiber. When I pointed this out to Ray, he said this was totally unintentional, an example of his subconscious naming his characters from the recesses of his memory.

from Hacker News https://ift.tt/3eQb2mz