Algernon, Charlie, and I
Daniel Keyes
(Reviewer - Dr. Alma Bond)
2004 A Harvest Book/Harcourt, Inc.
ISBN: 0156029995

A Writer's Journey reveals his methods of creating fiction as well as the heartbreaks & joys of being published.

In Flowers for Algernon, Daniel Keyes created an unlikely duo -- a laboratory mouse & a man who captured the hearts of millions of readers around the world. Now, in Algernon, Charlie, and I: A Writer's Journey, Keyes shares with readers, writers, teachers, & students the creative life behind his classic novel, which is included in this book in its original short story form. All those who love stories, storytelling, & the remarkable characters of Charlie & Algernon will delight in accompanying their creator on this inspirational voyage of discovery.

Senior Associate Reviewer Alma H. Bond, Ph.D. writes:

Flowers for Algernon is one of my all-time favorite books, so I was delighted to receive Algernon, Charlie, and I for review. The highest tribute I can pay both author & book is to say that in no way was I disappointed.

The book is arguably the best study of creativity in action ever written. While lesser artists zoom through a book in order to meet a deadline, Keyes waits for ideas to come to him from the unconscious, even though they often take years to emerge. He thinks of his unconscious as “the root cellar of his mind”, where experiences & images hibernate in the dark until they are ready to see the light of day. This mental storage space has a reality basis in Keyes' experience. To him, the space resembles one in his landlord's cellar where the author's vanished childhood toys were stored. He writes (page 6), “Somewhere between the coal bin and the furnace -- in the root cellar of my mind - ideas, images, scenes, and dreams wait in the dark until I need them.”

Perhaps the most significant (& moving) incident in the root cellar happened to the writer while he was teaching a class of Special Modified English for students with low I.Qs (page 90). A student came up to him and said, “I know this is a dummy class ... If I try hard and I get smart by the end of the term, will you put me in a regular class? I want to be smart.” The boy's words haunted the author, & he stored them away to take out at a later time.

When Keyes was a freshman in college, he wondered what would happen if it were possible to increase a person's intelligence. But he knew he wasn't ready yet to write a story about it & packed the thought away in his “storage room”. The next idea for Charlie came when Keyes was taking a biology course at N.Y.U. & was given a dead white mouse to dissect. Later that night, while reading an Anthology of English Poets for a quiz, he came across the name of Algernon Charles Swinburne. He thought, “What an unusual first name!”

Keyes had to work his way through college. In one of his jobs, he was an assistant to a bagel baker. The sights & smells of the bakery -- “the smell of the raw dough, and the whitened floors and walls ... working and kneading the dough in circular movements” -- were also hidden in his mental storage space until he took them out to describe Charlie's job in Flowers for Algernon.

Other jobs also provided material that became fodder for the book. Later he worked in a restaurant, where he was unfortunate enough to drop & break a number of glasses & plates (page 27). The owner screeched at him, “What's the matter with you? A college boy and he can't even wait on tables. Clean it up, moron!” The humiliation Keyes experienced at that time metamorphosed into Charlie Gordon's shame, as a mentally disadvantaged boy scolded by his employer (page 28), “All right, you dope! Don't just stand there. Get a broom and sweep that mess up. A broom ... A broom, you idiot!”

In his senior year, the author was given a Rorschach test. It brought back painful memories from the age of six when he spilled ink in his black & white marbled notebook for the third time that night (page 52). His mother tore out the page & said, “Do it over. It has to be perfect.” Keyes transformed the incident into a scene in which Charlie frustrates his psychologist with his “wrong” answers to the inkblots. I love Keyes' comment on the writing process (page 520), “Writers get even.”

Another useful memory from his childhood, when he had difficulty learning arithmetic tables, was also put to creative advantage. The young Keyes commanded himself to learn the numbers in his sleep. To his surprise, the next morning he found that he really did remember them. This experience became the basis of the sleep learning machine that Charlie struggled with during his experiment to increase his intelligence & knowledge.

Keyes' father was co-owner of a junk shop. The merchandise included a pile of old books so huge it reached the ceiling. Keyes would climb to the top, look through the books to see what he wanted to keep, & slide down the other side. The image of himself as a boy going up & down Book Mountain helped shape Flowers for Algernon. As Charlie's intelligence increased, the writer pictured him going up a mountain, & then saw him climbing down the other side.

As an adult looking for an idea for a short story, Keyes came across the note he had scrawled to himself as a college freshman about what would happen if it were possible to increase a person's intelligence. He discovered that he had followed this up with another idea for a story, “Plain guy becomes a genius with brain surgery” (page 74). The word “surgery” brought to mind the mouse he had dissected in Biology class. Later, much later, the mouse became Algernon.

Keyes was in psychoanalysis for a while. When he was having trouble with a scene in which Charlie is in analysis, the author remembered lying on his analyst's couch struggling with “Monday morning crust”, a concept Freud used to explain defenses that patients develop when away from analysis for the weekend. To write the necessary scene, Keyes was able to give that memory to Charlie. According to him, it was worth the cost of analysis.

The story was highly successful as a novelette, which is included in this book, & became loved all over the world. Keyes was afraid readers would be angry if he tampered with the story by turning it into a full length novel. Yet that is what he knew he had to do. For years, while he taught at Wayne State University, Flowers for Algernon continued to develop in his secret mental storage space, as he kept transforming more & more of his memories into Charlie's. In one instance, he recalled that as a child he was surrounded, beaten & tossed from one to the other by a gang of older boys. The memory led to a scene in which Charlie had his clothes torn, his nose bloodied, & one of his teeth broken by a group of bullies. Charlie sat on the sidewalk, tasted blood, & cried.

Keyes makes an interesting comment about an author transferring his own memories to a character. He says that after so doing, he loses the emotions originally connected with the incidents: He literally has given them away. This process is similar to what often happens in psychoanalysis & is one of the reasons it is therapeutic. After working through a traumatic incident, it often ceases to haunt the patient. Perhaps that is one reason why so many people want to write.

One would think that after the tremendous success of the novelette, including the award of a Pulitzer Prize, the author would have had no difficulty finding a publisher for the full novel. That is not what happened. He made so little money from the novelette that he had to continue teaching high school to support his family. Many major publishers rejected the novel, while still others wanted him to cut, revise the ending, & otherwise distort the story. He refused to make changes he did not feel right about, even though it meant the book would be rejected. One has to admire his integrity, although the result was that he had as much trouble selling it as if he were an unknown writer. At one point, he had an accident, & thought he was dying. His one thought was, “Thank God I finished the novel!” (page 136) More than his wife, his children, & the end of his world, it was writing the book according to his inner needs that mattered most. He wrote, “Even if no one else ever read it, I had done it.” Such is the mark of a creative genius.

Finally, after years of struggling, Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc. purchased Flowers for Algernon. It has never gone out of print since. Keyes says, “Algernon and Charlie and I had finally found a home.” (page 138). Actually, the trio had found several homes. The phenomenal success of the book, the TV version, Flowers for Algernon, & the movie, Charly, including the Academy Award won by Cliff Robertson as the hero, guarantee that the story of Charlie Gordon will be a classic forever.

Wouldn't the boy who “wanted to be smart” be thrilled to know that he has made an important contribution to the literature of the world?

To whom should the book be recommended?
Who hasn't known a Charlie who has broken one's heart?
Who doesn't enjoy a wonderful read?
Who would not benefit by insight into the mind of an unusual human being?
Who wouldn't like to follow the development of a brilliant writer?
Who isn't interested in the source of creativity?
Should such a person exist, that person & that person alone should not read Algernon, Charlie, and I.

More from Daniel Keyes:
Flowers for Algernon
The Touch
The Fifth Sally
The Minds of Billy Milligan
Unveiling Claudia
(10/10/04)

Dr. Alma Bond
2004©Alma Bond
A RebeccasReads.Com Sr. Associate Reviewer

A RebeccasReads author featured in Authors & Books

Reviewer's Bio:
Dr. Alma Halbert Bond is the author of ten published books, including:
The Deadly Jigsaw Puzzle;
The Tree That Could Fly;
Tales Of Psychology (2004);
I Married Dr. Jekyll And Woke Up Mrs. Hyde (2000);
The Autobiography Of Maria Callas, A Novel (1998);
On Becoming A Grandparent: A Diary of Family Discovery (1994);
Who Killed Virginia Woolf? A Psychobiography (1998);
Profiles of Key West (1996).

She recently recorded her new manuscript, Old Age Is A Terminal Illness, as an audio book.

She is also the author of a just published children's picture book called The Tree That Could Fly.

Dr. Bond teaches Psychology & Writing online at WriterSchool.