The Unquiet Dreamer

As Nabokov says, ‘I think it is all a matter of love; the more you love a memory the stronger and stranger it becomes’.

It was in 1998 at Dangerous Visions Bookstore, when a seismic shift altered the foundations of the room―in walked Harlan, the man who had written ‘Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes’, ‘Repent Harlequin . . .’ and ‘I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream’. The man who had met Bruce Lee, mouthed off to Sinatra, marched in Selma, had lived through the insanities of Hollywood producers . . . Something had happened to the crowd as if they had fallen into the path of a McCormick thresher―husks torn away to reveal something essential in their awe-struck silence.

I knew all too well how meeting one’s heroes can turn out badly, but I was indefatigable in my youth and I told him my dream of putting together an anthology someday, with a TOC that included some of the very writers in this book. ‘That’s a pretty nifty list,’ he had said. ‘Do it, kiddo.’ As the years passed, the dream had fallen by the wayside, but Harlan never let me forget.

And though I wish Harlan could see it, the dream is finally here―a book full of memories and love―thirty-three international contributors who have joined together to celebrate his life. It’s strong and strange in ways I never expected, full of inspired ideas, anecdotes and stories of Harlan. ―Preston Grassmann