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Where Memory Hides: A Writer's Life
“Lupoff writes with intelligence, humor, wisdom, and a zest for life. He had a lot of fun writing this book, and it shows; because of it, we have a lot of fun reading it.”Joe Gores, author of Hammett Where Memory Hides is a guided tour through the life and career of mystery and science fiction’s most versatile practitioner. Richard A. Lupoff has been a professional author for six decades, and a life-time fan of everything from pulp magazines to comic books, science fiction and mystery, and more. As the extensive bibliography (included in this book) demonstrates, Lupoff's credits run the gamut of fiction, nonfiction, mainstream publishing, and fan journals. In the 1960s, he penned All In Color For a Dime , a foundation-laying work for modern comic book fandom, and Edgar Rice Burroughs: Master of Adventure , a study of Tarzan's creator. The Comic Book Killer and Marblehead are among his best-known novels. His short story 12:01 PM , filmed twice in the 1990s, added a new sub-genre to science fiction and spawned a legion of imitators. In Where Memory Hides , Lupoff regales readers with triumphs and tribulations from his six-decade plus career. He also offers insights on writing, haggling with agents, and literary criticism of authors such as Dashiell Hammett, H.P. Lovecraft, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and many others. This autobiography is available in two editions -- a standard trade paperback edition, and a paperback collector's edition with color graphics throughout. “… (Lupoff’s) books and stories, I can testify, having read a great many of them and published some myself, almost unfailingly display not only his intelligence and perceptivity, but also the grace and charm of his wit, the skill of his narrative technique, and the exemplary individuality of his ideas. That is to say, he’s a damned good writer.”Robert Silverberg, author of The Book of Skulls “… Although in his 80s, Lupoff still writes with the enthusiasm of a young fan …” Publisher’s Weekly
390 pages, Paperback
First published September 12, 2016
8 people want to read
About the author
Richard A. Lupoff
221 books39 followersRichard Allen "Dick" Lupoff (born February 21, 1935 in Brooklyn, New York) is an American science fiction and mystery author, who has also written humor, satire, non-fiction and reviews. In addition to his two dozen novels and more than 40 short stories, he has also edited science-fantasy anthologies. He is an expert on the writing of Edgar Rice Burroughs and has an equally strong interest in H. P. Lovecraft. Before becoming a full-time writer in 1970 he worked in the computer industry.
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July 23, 2023
Dick Lupoff died about two and a half years ago. My usual practice, when an author I favor dies, is to read or reread something of his or hers in celebration of the life and works. But Lupoff's death hurt too much for me to do that: for many years, he was -- I can't really say a _friend_, we weren't that close, but certainly friendly acquaintances, and I admired him very much: indeed, at one point (I was very young) I declared myself the founding member of the Lupoff Fan Club. Then we drifted apart. I last saw Dick at a Baycon sometime in the 1990s. By that point he had mostly left the science fiction field, or, as he puts it, it left him; and, after a period of bureaucratic employment, he was in the early stages of a successful career as a mystery writer. But during those years, I bought a number of Dick's books, most of which he autographed (or, as he put it, "defaced") for me.
For those of you who don't know, Richard A. Lupoff was, from the '60s through the late '80s, an excellent writer of science fiction and fantasy. Although he never reached the upper tiers of sales, his record was good. He published a score of novels and many short stories in the field, and was nominated for a few awards (his only Hugo was for the fanzine, _Xero_, which he co-edited with his wife and Bhob Stewart). Two of his best books -- _Space War Blues_ and _Sacred Locomotive Flies_ -- both suffered timing problems. Had they been published as originally planned, they might well have been immensely popular. But the Locomotive was delayed, and was somewhat preempted by Tom Robbins's _Another Roadside Attraction_, while the Blues were delayed so long that the social conditions which it critiqued were no longer in the news (though many of them are, alas, back now).
Anyway: I recently began looking through my Lupoff collection, thinking of augmenting it. This book, albeit only in an ebook edition (I shall doubtless follow up with a hardcopy at some point, if only for easier reference to specific "bits") was one such augmentation.
_Where Memory Hides_ is a sort of reconstituted autobiography. You see, many moons ago, Audrey Parente, an editor at Bold Venture Press, published a collection of Dick Lupoff's stories, called _Dreamer's Dozen_. In Lupoff's words: "Next thing I know, Audrey is hounding me for an autobiography." He never gave her one, but he published several volumes of essays, which Parente (again, Lupoff's word) "deconstructed," along with "other essays and anecdotes and interviews," which she then assembled into the first draft of this book; she gave it to Lupoff, and he then added stuff to it, blessed it, and let her publish it, whicih she did, in 2016.
As such, it is a bit of a mixed bag, with some repetitions and significant lacunae. It is not a straight-through autobiography. But it is entertaining, full of insights into who Dick was, how and why he wrote, and much more interesting (at least to me) stuff. Several of his anecdotes (which I can't help hearing in his voice) made me laugh out loud, something I don't often do when reading books, and, indeed, this is not the first book of his to make me do so. This puts him in the esteemed company of Donald Westlake, Terry Pratchett, and, of all people, Stephen King.
Not bad company to be in. I think he would have been happy to be there.
I won't tell any of the anecdotes here, because I couldn't do them justice without copying them directly from the book.
To summarize, though: Dick was born in 1935, in New York city, grandchild of immigrant Jews. His mother died when he was young and his father, grieving and apparantely unable to cope with his two sons, sent them off to a military academy in New Jersey. After college, he spent a tour as a lieutenant in the U.S. Army in the sweet spot between the unpleasantnesses in Korea and Vietnam, went to work as a technical writer for Sperry Rand, and then for IBM; quit in the mid-'60s to pursue a fulltime career as a writer of fiction and "other stuff," and was successful enough at that to sustain himself, his wife Pat, and three children for a couple of decades.
Anyway: if you enjoy memoirs, this is a good one, even if it's a little strangely organized.
For those of you who don't know, Richard A. Lupoff was, from the '60s through the late '80s, an excellent writer of science fiction and fantasy. Although he never reached the upper tiers of sales, his record was good. He published a score of novels and many short stories in the field, and was nominated for a few awards (his only Hugo was for the fanzine, _Xero_, which he co-edited with his wife and Bhob Stewart). Two of his best books -- _Space War Blues_ and _Sacred Locomotive Flies_ -- both suffered timing problems. Had they been published as originally planned, they might well have been immensely popular. But the Locomotive was delayed, and was somewhat preempted by Tom Robbins's _Another Roadside Attraction_, while the Blues were delayed so long that the social conditions which it critiqued were no longer in the news (though many of them are, alas, back now).
Anyway: I recently began looking through my Lupoff collection, thinking of augmenting it. This book, albeit only in an ebook edition (I shall doubtless follow up with a hardcopy at some point, if only for easier reference to specific "bits") was one such augmentation.
_Where Memory Hides_ is a sort of reconstituted autobiography. You see, many moons ago, Audrey Parente, an editor at Bold Venture Press, published a collection of Dick Lupoff's stories, called _Dreamer's Dozen_. In Lupoff's words: "Next thing I know, Audrey is hounding me for an autobiography." He never gave her one, but he published several volumes of essays, which Parente (again, Lupoff's word) "deconstructed," along with "other essays and anecdotes and interviews," which she then assembled into the first draft of this book; she gave it to Lupoff, and he then added stuff to it, blessed it, and let her publish it, whicih she did, in 2016.
As such, it is a bit of a mixed bag, with some repetitions and significant lacunae. It is not a straight-through autobiography. But it is entertaining, full of insights into who Dick was, how and why he wrote, and much more interesting (at least to me) stuff. Several of his anecdotes (which I can't help hearing in his voice) made me laugh out loud, something I don't often do when reading books, and, indeed, this is not the first book of his to make me do so. This puts him in the esteemed company of Donald Westlake, Terry Pratchett, and, of all people, Stephen King.
Not bad company to be in. I think he would have been happy to be there.
I won't tell any of the anecdotes here, because I couldn't do them justice without copying them directly from the book.
To summarize, though: Dick was born in 1935, in New York city, grandchild of immigrant Jews. His mother died when he was young and his father, grieving and apparantely unable to cope with his two sons, sent them off to a military academy in New Jersey. After college, he spent a tour as a lieutenant in the U.S. Army in the sweet spot between the unpleasantnesses in Korea and Vietnam, went to work as a technical writer for Sperry Rand, and then for IBM; quit in the mid-'60s to pursue a fulltime career as a writer of fiction and "other stuff," and was successful enough at that to sustain himself, his wife Pat, and three children for a couple of decades.
Anyway: if you enjoy memoirs, this is a good one, even if it's a little strangely organized.
Displaying 1 of 1 review