Hunger and Thirst (71 page)

I doubt if many authors have gone through this sort of experience. How many of them have written a deeply personal novel at the age of twenty-three, put it out of sight and mind, then had to read it half a century later.

It was, as I have said, discomfiting, dismaying even. Because I was being given the opportunity—conceivably the punishment—of being plunged back to a me I had virtually forgotten. A me I have outgrown. A me that I could understand perfectly but did not particularly care for.

As a writer, I am able to appreciate that, despite my manifold flaws, I was able to see through them and not present them in a glossy manner. I saw myself, psychological warts and all. Not bad to observe as a writer. Bad to observe as a remembering human being.

Not that the novel is completely autobiographical. My mother did not die as she does in the story nor was our relationship as presented. My brother-in-law was a perfectly decent chap, my sister a kind and generous person. There was no Lynn in my life and many major incidents in my life did not occur as portrayed.

Because even then, while pouring out much of my immature emotions and attitudes, I was beginning to develop the inner knowledge of the writer that life is not only stranger than fiction but is, more often than not, considerably more monotonous in its structure. Our lives rarely fashion themselves into well-formed stories. They are discursive, erratic, at times dramatic to be sure but, on far more occasions, prosaic and run of the mill.

Still, enough of the novel reflects my life to disturb me deeply.

Looking back, I was forced to recognize the selfishness in my younger self. The almost total self-involvement. The cruelties and thoughtless actions of that forgotten young man—forgotten until I had to read the novel.

Every young man at nineteen most likely resembles the character of Erick Linstrom. But, in fifty years, one is able to overlay any memories of that younger self with the helpful blurring of time. One is able to chuckle and shake one’s head and say, “Yeah, I was a jerk then.
Boy
, was I a jerk.”

But to be suddenly dropped through time to see that
you
are
alive
again …

It was like meeting my own ghost and wishing, in vain, that I could exorcise him.

—Richard Matheson