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Watermelon Man
The uppity novel about the uppity movie Watermelon Man
A novel by HERMAN RAUCHER
based on his screenplay now a Columbia Picture A Bennet -Mirrell-Van Peebles Production
starring GODFREY CAMBRIDGE
and ESTELLE PARSONS
A novel by HERMAN RAUCHER
based on his screenplay now a Columbia Picture A Bennet -Mirrell-Van Peebles Production
starring GODFREY CAMBRIDGE
and ESTELLE PARSONS
- GenresHumorScience Fiction
160 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1970
48 people want to read
About the author
Herman Raucher
16 books67 followersEbooks now available for download. Print-on-demand to follow soon. See author website for links and updates at www.hermanraucher.com
Herman Raucher began his writing career during The Golden Age of Live Television, penning original one hour dramas for such esteemed shows as Studio One, Goodyear Playhouse and The Alcoa Hour. At about the same time, he was serving as Advertising Copy Director for Walt Disney whose new company, Buena Vista, was venturing from animated films into live action productions. It was also the time of the debut of Disneyland and all the excitement that came with it.
Back in New York he served as Creative Director and Board Member of several major ad agencies. To further fill out his life he turned his pen to writing four plays, six novels and seven films, among them being “Summer of '42” which was both a best-selling novel and a box office success. It earned him an Academy Award Nomination for Best Original Screenplay as well as a similar nomination from The Writers Guild of America. Raucher’s cult film, “Hieronymus Merkin,”won the Best Original Screenplay award from The Writers Guild of Great Britain. His racially charged movie, “Watermelon Man,”shook up the film critics no small end.
He still feels most at home with novels, in that no one can change as much as a comma without his approval—a condition that every writer savors but very few achieve.
Herman Raucher began his writing career during The Golden Age of Live Television, penning original one hour dramas for such esteemed shows as Studio One, Goodyear Playhouse and The Alcoa Hour. At about the same time, he was serving as Advertising Copy Director for Walt Disney whose new company, Buena Vista, was venturing from animated films into live action productions. It was also the time of the debut of Disneyland and all the excitement that came with it.
Back in New York he served as Creative Director and Board Member of several major ad agencies. To further fill out his life he turned his pen to writing four plays, six novels and seven films, among them being “Summer of '42” which was both a best-selling novel and a box office success. It earned him an Academy Award Nomination for Best Original Screenplay as well as a similar nomination from The Writers Guild of America. Raucher’s cult film, “Hieronymus Merkin,”won the Best Original Screenplay award from The Writers Guild of Great Britain. His racially charged movie, “Watermelon Man,”shook up the film critics no small end.
He still feels most at home with novels, in that no one can change as much as a comma without his approval—a condition that every writer savors but very few achieve.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
October 4, 2011
Herman Raucher wrote The Summer of '42, a book I picked up on accident for a quarter at a garage sale. It is beautiful and tragic and real. I've never seen the movie and I'm not sure I want to, since I love the book so much...that isn't exactly how I feel about this other Raucher book Watermelon Man. Written in 1970 a year before The Summer of '42, it chronicles the life of this incredible bigot named Jeffrey and his inability to find any substance in his life...that is until he wakes up one morning and he's 'black as night' and getting blacker by the minute.
In the beginning I found the premise of this book to be quite clever and enjoyed some of the old racial slang being made fun of, in what must have been totally unexpected and fresh way in 1970. By the end of the book, however, I was tired of the jokes and looking forward to watching the movie. Frankly, everything about the book is probably predictable to a modern audience there's jokes about class and race stereotypes including a black mans' prowess in bed, his ability to run a good race and his ability to make light out of just about anything (you know the old Sambo complex), once his neighbors find out his black they forget he was ever white and start harassing him to sell his home and move. There's a lady at the office who's only interested in him after he's black and while he feels used, he likes the attention. His kids, who are young, don't understand what the big deal is and his wife, who watched the race riots religiously and wanted to help everybody get along is actually, you guessed it, so racist she really can't be seen with or married to him anymore. What I found interesting, however, were all the ways Mr. Gerber tries to get rid of his skin tone there are countless showers, creams and powders and lotions...this has to play out quite humorously on film.
I gotta tell you though, I really wish the book had been stereotypical until the very end, and since it isn't I'm not sure what lessons I'm supposed to have learned. It seems that the only characters who come off as having grown are the kids, and even then I'm not sure if that's true as Jeff, rich and divorced, only talks to them on the phone.
This book is funny when I think it should be serious and just when I started laughing for real...it pulled the rug right from underneath me.
In the beginning I found the premise of this book to be quite clever and enjoyed some of the old racial slang being made fun of, in what must have been totally unexpected and fresh way in 1970. By the end of the book, however, I was tired of the jokes and looking forward to watching the movie. Frankly, everything about the book is probably predictable to a modern audience there's jokes about class and race stereotypes including a black mans' prowess in bed, his ability to run a good race and his ability to make light out of just about anything (you know the old Sambo complex), once his neighbors find out his black they forget he was ever white and start harassing him to sell his home and move. There's a lady at the office who's only interested in him after he's black and while he feels used, he likes the attention. His kids, who are young, don't understand what the big deal is and his wife, who watched the race riots religiously and wanted to help everybody get along is actually, you guessed it, so racist she really can't be seen with or married to him anymore. What I found interesting, however, were all the ways Mr. Gerber tries to get rid of his skin tone there are countless showers, creams and powders and lotions...this has to play out quite humorously on film.
I gotta tell you though, I really wish the book had been stereotypical until the very end, and since it isn't I'm not sure what lessons I'm supposed to have learned. It seems that the only characters who come off as having grown are the kids, and even then I'm not sure if that's true as Jeff, rich and divorced, only talks to them on the phone.
This book is funny when I think it should be serious and just when I started laughing for real...it pulled the rug right from underneath me.
September 25, 2007
Jeff Gerber, a bigoted middle class white man wakes up one morning to find out that he is Black. Okay, the device might seem a little over-used and threadbare now, in our enlightened day (being ironic here), but its a pretty good story. Kinda like a darker, racially tinged FREAKY FRIDAY. You know, now I understand cus I have walked in your shoes kinda thing. Only, Gerber doesn't ever wake up from this dream. Touches some of the issues of the nonfiction BLACK LIKE ME where a white dude gets to see what its like to be black and beaten down in a prejudiced society. Apparently, it sucks. A pretty good movie was made with the same name. (Actually the novel I read had the old title, which was something like A Dark Day on Happy Hollow Lane).
October 13, 2016
The tables are turned on a bigot when he is thrust into the world as an African American man. This is an incredible book about seeing the world through another's eyes and experiencing what one side accepts as right even though it is wrong. Mr. Raucher is a gifted writer because he knows human nature and how to expose the weak underbelly with wit and simplicity. I have read this book thrice and will probably do so again in the future.
May 4, 2012
Funny and witty, this book is charming, even in its failures. It's a 70's pulp novel at its simplest and quirkiest form. Kind of like a cheap Vernon Sullivan. It reads well and fast and that's about all you need for a summer laying-on-the-lawn-with-some-sort-of-cold-beverage type of read.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews