Disappearing Authors

December 8, 2025December 2, 2025 / Susan O. / 1 Comment

Barbara Newhall Follett was a writer who disappeared. Not fell out of favor or faded out of print, but disappeared. Considered a child genius who published a successful novel at the age of 12, The House Without Windows (it helped, of course, that her father was an editor at Alfred Knopf publishers), Follett was emotionally destroyed by her father’s divorce when she was 14, and never did much more. In 1939, Follett had a fight with her husband, walked out her door in Boston, and was never seen again…

Some authors are known for being extremely reclusive – J. D. Salinger, for one. Salinger had numerous personal and family issues, many, his daughter believed, stemming from PTSD from serving in World War II, and he hid from the intense fame he acquired from Catcher in the Rye. He seldom gave interviews or made appearances.

Thomas Pynchon is another, not having given an interview or even having a photo published in more than fifty years. He has no media accounts. In his late 80’s, it’s believed he’s living in Mexico, but no one except perhaps his publisher knows for certain.

Some authors aren’t lost, they’re just taking forever on that next novel – sometimes 10 years or more (staring right at you, George R. R. Martin). There are only a handful who have actually disappeared, becoming their own mystery.

Agatha Christie is perhaps the most famous. The Queen of Mystery herself disappeared in 1926, after a fight with her husband over his request for a divorce. Her car was discovered, empty. More than 15,000 people turned out to look for her, with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle going so far as to hire mediums. Eleven days later, she turned up in a hotel, 185 miles away, with no memory of what happened. Some publicists called it revenge against her husband that backfired when so many people got involved, while doctors said she had a nervous breakdown from the strain.

Solomon Northup is a name you may be familiar with. His memoir was made into an Oscar-Winning film, Twelve Years a Slave. Northup, who was born free in upstate New York but kidnapped and sold into slavery, wrote and published his memoir in 1853. Then, in 1857, he seems to disappear from historical records. Some thought he may have been kidnapped again, but his age at the time (around 50) made it unlikely. A Methodist minister in Vermont claimed to have worked with him in the early 1860’s, and last saw him in 1863. It’s assumed he died sometime between 1863 and 1864.

Elena Ferrante is a well-known author of more than 30 books, some of which have been made into movies or TV series, such as My Brilliant Friend. It’s also a pseudonym. Her true identity is a secret and almost nothing is known about her, except that she was born in Naples. In interviews, she claims it’s from shyness and fear of coming out of her shell. Speculation claims the author is actually Anita Raja, or her husband. Both people, and Ferrante’s publisher, deny it emphatically.

Antoine de St. Exupery is most famous for the timeless classic, The Little Prince, which was partly based on an airplane crash he and his navigator survived in the Libyan Desert. St. Exupery became a pilot in the 1920’s, joining the French Army, and later the French Air Force. Much of his writing has an aviation theme. When France was pulled into World War II, St. Exupery was assigned to reconnaissance missions, as an experienced pilot. On July 31, 1944, he left the airbase on Corsica in a Lockheed P-38, and was never heard from again. It wasn’t until 1998 – 54 years later, that a fisherman found a bracelet with his name on it. No one believed it, as it was some distance away from his intended flight plan. In 2000, a diver near the same area discovered wreckage of a Lockheed P-38. In 2003, the pieces were recovered and tested, proving indeed it was St. Exupery’s plane, downed in the war, though the details remain a mystery.

Ambrose Bierce was a short story writer and Civil War veteran, most famous for the story An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. His stories influenced Stephen Crane and Ernest Hemingway, and he is considered one of America’s best satirists. At the age of 71, he went on a trip to visit his old Civil War battlegrounds, crossed over into Mexico, and wound up joining Pancho Villa’s army, documenting the battles. His last letter is dated December 26, 1913. His secretary believed he threw himself into the Grand Canyon in a suicide move, but witnesses saw him in Chihuahua in January of 1914. Mexican legend has it he was executed by a firing squad. Either way, it’s a great story!

Jack Black is one rough figure- no, not the actor! A drifter and burglar born around 1871, his 1926 autobiography You Can’t Win described his life of crime on the road. Disenchanted with both “genteel” life and that of the judicial system, he spent 30 years as a traveling criminal (15 of which he spent in prison). The book was influential for William S. Burroughs, a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Another odd fact: The author who helped him with his autobiography was none other than Rose Wilder Lane, the daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder. You Can’t Win was adapted into a movie starring Michael Pitt and Jeremy Allen White, but has been in a liminal post-production stage for years. Black himself disappeared in 1932, and is believed to have committed suicide.

Returning to Barbara Newhall Follett’s story, there is something of a conclusion. After her disappearance, her husband didn’t report her missing for two weeks. The police eventually put out a bulletin – four months later. They used her married name, not her maiden name. A body was found, then determined not to be hers but a woman who had been missing years before. Thirteen years later, her mother insisted the police look harder, but nothing new was found. In 2019 – eighty years later – writer Daniel Mills proposed a theory that her body had been found in 1948, just not properly identified. The body had been found in New Hampshire – just a half mile from where she had a rental property and not terribly far from her home in Boston. The possessions found with the body were things Follett was known to have. The cause of death was barbiturate overdose, a substance Follett had taken before. The police in New Hampshire had no idea she’d been missing.

Authors, even the most famous ones, are still people, with the same dramas as everyone else. Does art imitate life, or does life create the art?

For books on “prodigies” who turn away from their potential, check out Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, or Off the Charts: The Hidden Lives and Lessons of American Child Prodigies by Ann Hulbert.

Like a Hurricane

June 23, 2025June 18, 2025 / Susan O. / Leave a comment

Every so often an actor seems to become a shooting star, rising to the top from seemingly nowhere, and now he or she seems to be in everything. Leonardo DiCaprio started as a 14 year old in a Matchbox commercial and by 19 had an Academy Award nomination for What’s Eating Gilbert Grape. Harrison Ford made American Graffiti at 31, an unknown actor who was remodeling a kitchen for the casting director, then made himself part of history just three years later when Star Wars sent him to superstardom faster than the Kessel run. Brad Pitt had a small role as a cowboy hitchhiker in Thelma and Louise, then rose to stardom a year later in A River Runs Through It.

Some actors start out young – Shirley Temple was just three when she made Stand Up and Cheer, making 50 films before retiring at the age of 22. Judy Garland began performing with her sisters even younger – just two. Studio executives were feeding her amphetamines by 16 to keep her energy up, leading to an overdose death at just 47. Justin Henry is the youngest ever Academy Award nominee at just 8 years old, for Kramer Vs. Kramer. Tatum O’Neal remains the youngest winner of an Academy Award, landing her a Best Supporting Actress at just nine years old, for Paper Moon. Halley Joel Osment was just eleven in The Sixth Sense, but was already a veteran after playing the son of Forrest Gump at the age of six.

Now, another young actor is exploding on Hollywood, not yet thirty with dozens of awards to his name. Timothée Chalamet seems to be taking the world by storm. Although his mother danced on Broadway, Chalamet credits Heath Ledger’s performance as the Joker in 2008’s Dark Knight for starting his acting bug.

Born in just 1995 (ouch), Chalamet’s premiere was on Law and Order in 2009, moving to films with a role in Interstellar. From there, an almost non-stop string of movies came. Call Me By Your Name (2017) earned him an Academy Award Best Actor nomination, the third youngest nominee ever. His success culminated in the lead roles for the Dune films (another movie nominated for the Oscar), Wonka, and the recent A Complete Unknown, a biography of singer Bob Dylan (now 83), for which he was again nominated for an Oscar at 29 years old. Chalamet had Dylan’s approval for the role. He sang more than 40 of Dylan’s songs for the soundtrack (and did an excellent job), and yes, he himself played both the guitar and harmonica for it. On top of that, between acting, singing, and playing the actual instruments, Chalamet also co-produced the film. He lost the Oscar to Adrien Brody (The Brutalist), but became the youngest actor ever to win the Screen Actor’s Guild Best Actor award for the role.

Some actors start out unknown and bloom into fame in time; others seem to shoot straight to the top. Some who do fade out for a variety of reasons (James Dean made only 3 films; Mel Gibson’s behavior became a liability, Drew Barrymore was in substance rehab by thirteen, Ezra Miller became erratic), but others manage to navigate the pitfalls and go on to have long and amazing careers (Jeff Bridges, Clint Eastwood, Betty White, Kurt Russell, Mickey Rooney, for some). Time will tell if Chalamet can keep the fire burning.

I’m betting he does. Check out his work, and see if you agree!

Side note: Both A Complete Unknown and The Brutalist have only been released on Blu Ray disc, so check your player first.

Tales of Shipwreck & Survival

May 26, 2025May 19, 2025 / Susan O. / 2 Comments

Everyone knows about the Titanic since they found the wreckage and made a movie about it, but shipwreck is usually the last thing on anyone’s mind when they book a cruise. In reality, only 24 cruise ships have ever sank, and many of those had been pressed into service as warships at the time. Cruise ships, despite their top-heavy appearance, are quite safe.

*There are an estimated 3,000 shipwrecks off the coast* *of the Outer Banks, NC*

There are an estimated three million shipwrecks under the waters, not counting small craft. Some of these date back as far as 2500 BCE, when the Mediterranean Sea was a hotbed of trade from Egypt and North Africa to the coasts of Italy, Greece, and Spain. The rate of commercial shipwrecks has been declining throughout this century, from 200 in 2000 to only 26 in 2023, and most of those are cargo ships, which are often in poor repair, overloaded, badly balanced, and cross some of the most difficult waters (releasing rubber ducks and sneakers). This does not include the fishing industry, which is nearly unregulated, especially in Asia and South America. It is estimated there are 100,000 deaths from fishing each year, due to poor industry standards and almost no oversight.

When we think about historical ships, we think back to Roman biremes, Viking longboats, and primitive rafts like Thor Heyerdahl’s Kon Tiki long before we come to the glory days of Spanish, British, French, and Portuguese galleons vying for naval power, leading to spectacular – and expensive – shipwrecks. The Bermuda Triangle, The Skeleton Coast, The Cape of Good Hope, and several rocky coastal areas around the continents were famous for wrecking ships, let alone the risk – then and now – for icebergs in the North Atlantic, and the real though rare possibility of rogue waves – lone giant waves of up to 100 feet, with no warning and no precursors, which have been implicated in a number of wrecks. There’s also the 1958 Lituya Bay, Alaska tsunami, which, due to the funneling nature of the bay, created a wave 1700 (yes, one thousand seven hundred) feet high, lifting a fishing boat, whose crew miraculously survived.

Like all natural disasters, ship disasters make for fascinating reading and occasionally a great movie. Here are some excellent works on the misfortunes of ocean-bound ships, some of which you may not have heard of, but really happened.

The Wager, by David Grann

If you haven’t yet read The Wager, you need to. A true tale of murder, mutiny, greed, heroism, and unbelievable survival in the harshest of conditions. Against better judgment, the Wager tries to round the dangerous Cape Horn in 1741, smashing against rocks in a gale. In a barren wasteland, with nothing to eat, the crew splits, half commit mutiny, some commit murder, and half of them will make it back to tell the riveting tale. A must read.

Graveyard of the Pacific, by Randall Sullivan

Who knew that more 2000 ships have been wrecked on the corner of the Oregon/Washington coast? Fierce storms, fog, reefs, sandbars, and tidal rips from the incoming flood of the Columbia river are so bad that there are specific ships and captains who must steer commercial ships through the area. While the book is partially taken up by one man’s quest to kayak through this deadly area, the rest of the book is quite fascinating.

Ghost Ship, by Brian Hicks

There are many theories as to why the ship Mary Celeste was found abandoned at sea in 1872, with no clue as to what happened. The lifeboat was missing, and the crew abandoned ship so rapidly that food was still on the table and a sleeping child’s form was still outlined on the captain’s bed. Hicks combs through details to provide a solid, scientific reason, the best theory anyone has come up with yet, and the horrible fate of the crew.

In the Heart of the Sea, by Nathaniel Philbrick.

The foundering of the whaleship Essex in 1820 became the inspiration for Melville’s novel Moby Dick. The Essex was sunk by a sperm whale in the Pacific, killing most of the crew. A handfull survived in a whaleboat for five months, surviving on cannibalism and rainwater. Melville allegedly met the son of survivor Owen Chase while at sea, and later met surviving Captain Pollard, who was considered bad luck after two lost ships, and no one would hire him. The combined diaries of the survivors were later made into a film.

When the Dancing Stopped, by Brian Hicks.

If Ghost Ship wasn’t enough, Hicks covers the perfect storm of disaster on the Morro Castle, a top of the line 1934 cruise ship traveling between Cuba and New York’s Pier 13. With horrific odds, the ship faced a tropical storm gaining on them, a nor’easter barreling toward them from the opposite direction, a murdered captain, an arsonist’s chemical fire underneath a ceiling filled with gunpowder, a crew that had never performed a fire or lifeboat drill, lifeboats whose launch mechanisms were painted closed, and a crew that fell apart at the first sign of trouble. How anyone survived (besides the crew, who abandoned ship without helping passengers) is a miracle. A book that reads like a novel, and is very hard to put down.

Deadliest Sea: The Untold Story Behind the Greatest Rescue in Coast Guard History, by Kalee Thompson

More fish are caught in Alaskan waters than almost everywhere else, yet many fishing boats remain virtually unregulated as to safety, and there are powerful political groups that push against it. In 2008, the Alaska Ranger meets with bad weather and too much ice, loses its rudder, and starts to sink. As in every disaster, few are trained, shortcuts were taken, lifeboats don’t work properly, wetsuits have holes, and they are more than 200 miles from the Coast Guard rescue planes. Thompson creates a tense tale of survival and aggravatingly poor working conditions as the Coast Guard rushes to save the crew. A lot of names, but hard to put down.

Futility, or, The Wreck of the Titan, by Morgan Robertson

Okay, this one is short fiction, and because it’s so old it’s hard to get a copy of (you can read it for free on Project Gutenberg, here), but it’s mentioned in so many memes as “The Titanic Foretold!” that I wanted to include it here. Published in 1898, the book, yes, involves an “unsinkable” ship called the Titan, that, in its second collision in two days, hits an iceberg and capsizes. The unlikable protagonist rescues a little girl in order to get a seat on a lifeboat, then plots to use her to extort money from her family, and most of the book is about him whining about being stuck with the kid. There is almost nothing in this novella that compares with the Titanic, beyond a name (common enough. It would have been more compelling if the name was Carpathia or something) and an iceberg (also common in those waters). It’s short, you can read it, but it’s trite, simplistic, outdated, boring, and sometimes painful to read. But, truly, it in no way predicted the wreck of the Titanic.

If you’d prefer, check out these films of ocean disasters:

In the Heart of the Sea

The Perfect Storm

Finest Hours

The Poseidon Adventure

Unorthodox Aliens

December 23, 2024December 23, 2024 / Adam / 1 Comment

Reading science fiction can be overwhelming — what on earth is a chrono-synclastic infundibulum? Despite the tough jargon and speculative concepts, it’s quite an inward-looking genre. These stories typically loop back around to reflect something about ourselves — an assumption or expectation or fear that could use some interrogation. Aliens are possibly the most overt display of this narrative device. They are funhouse mirror versions of ourselves: the same but different. Aliens carry all the social, cultural, and political baggage we tend to associate with Otherness, but evoke sympathy too. At the end of E.T., are we not puffy-eyed to see that strange creature, who’s been nurtured and accepted, finally return home?

And don’t we all feel like E.T. — an alien, a pariah — in some way?

Here are some novels and stories that feature subtle and unconventional alien characters.

Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut loves his unorthodox aliens. Hand-shaped Tralfamadorians play a significant role in Slaughterhouse-Five, but I’d like to mention a minor alien race from Sirens of Titan. In a slight deviation from his main journey, protagonist Malachi Constant crash-lands on a planet populated by harmoniums: flat, kite-shaped beings that cling to cave walls and only perceive the world through touch. They communicate with limited telepathic abilities and are able to send two possible messages:

The first is an automatic response to the second, and the second is an automatic response to the first.
The first is, “Here I am, here I am, here I am.”
The second is, “So glad you are, so glad you are, so glad you are.”

Hyperion by Dan Simmons

Hyperion borrows its framing device from The Canterbury Tales. Its narrative unfolds as each of six pilgrims tells their portion of the story on their way to the time tombs, where they plan to confront the omnipotent Shrike. The Shrike fits your evil-monster-alien archetype (with some twists along the way), but there are other alien beings that populate the many planets of Hyperion. Most poignant is Simmons’ depiction of a human race that has lost its home: the Earth. They become aliens in their own right, establishing new civilizations around the galaxy but ultimately “alienated” in one way or another.

Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang

“Story of Your Life,” from the short story collection Stories of Your Life and Others, is about language, specifically the field of science known as linguistic relativity. Researchers in this field try to determine whether the language we use affects the way we think. For example, some languages describe time using distance terms (like “short” and “long”) and others describe time using quantity related terms (like “much” or “little”). A study from 2017 concluded that, under certain circumstances, these language differences result in actual differences in time perception.

Chiang takes this idea to its extreme and introduces an alien race that communicates in a completely circular language. As a result, these aliens perceive time as though it were a circle, living the entirety of their lives simultaneously- past, present, and future.

What if a human were to learn their strange and powerful language? “Story of Your Life” was adapted into the 2016 film Arrival.

The Paper Menagerie by Ken Liu

Some might be familiar with Ken Liu’s translation work. He’s best known for the English translation of The Three-Body Problem, a sci-fi epic by Liu Cixin (now a Netflix Original). He also writes novels and short stories that blend sci-fi, fantasy, and folklore.

His short story collection Paper Menagerie opens with “The Bookmaking Habits of Select Species.” The title says it all — how might alien races create persistent representations of their language and thoughts? I particularly like how he describes the Allatians: they stick their proboscis onto an impressionable surface, and as they speak, their proboscis vibrates and etches a groove into the surface. To read what another Allatian has written, one drags their own proboscis through the groove, and a hollow part of their skull amplifies the sound; the voice of the writer is recreated.

The Book of Strange New Things and Under the Skin by Michel Faber

Aliens are a recurring theme in Michel Faber’s writing. His 2014 novel, The Book of Strange New Things, takes place on a far-away planet that has been introduced to Christianity. Missionary Peter Leigh becomes the new minister of a docile alien congregation but struggles to reconcile his ecclesiastical commitment and the guilt of leaving his wife back on Earth, where climate change and political turmoil conspire to topple civilization.

Under the Skin, Faber’s first novel, paints a darker portrait of humanity (or alienity, ha). It’s the kind of book that holds its cards close and lets the reader marvel (and shudder) as the story progresses.

Faber presents a kaleidoscope of Otherness; themes of exploitation, gender, immigration, class politics, and animal cruelty are woven throughout and explored with satirical levity. The book was loosely adapted into a movie of the same name in 2013 with Scarlett Johansson.

Which “Unorthodox Aliens” am I missing? Let me know in the comments section below.

Book-to-Screen Adaptations Coming in 2023

March 21, 2023March 30, 2023 / Louise / 1 Comment

If you love seeing your favorite books come to life on the big or small screen, 2023 is shaping up to be a great year. And if you’re a read-it-before-you-see-it person, you’ll want to take note of the screen adaptations slated for release this year, and add the following books to your reading list! (Release dates are given when known, though they are subject to change).

Dear Edward by Ann Napolitano (on Apple TV+ Feb. 3)

The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay (in theaters Feb. 5)

The Black-Eyed Blonde by Benjamin Black (in theaters Feb. 15)

Daisy Jones & the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid (on Amazon Prime Mar. 3)

Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume(in theaters Apr. 28)

Text for You (movie title: Love Again)by Sofie Cramer (in theaters May 12)

Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann (in theaters May 2023)

Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson (in theaters June 30)

American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin (in theaters July 21)

Hallowe’en Party (movie title: A Haunting in Venice) by Agatha Christie (in theaters Sept. 15)

Dune (Part Two) by Frank Herbert (in theaters Nov. 3)

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins (in theaters Nov. 17)