We spoke of Penny, who was doing well. Then the matter of Bruce came up. My parents said he had revealed to them what they had long suspected, that he was a homosexual man. Furthermore, he was participating in “Act Up” gay political marches and other events in San Francisco. Mom and Dad were not at all pleased by this information.
On the heels of this we told my parents exciting news: Jan was going to have a baby that fall. Suddenly they were ecstatic. Dad took me to the wine cellar and located a special wine to celebrate the occasion, a Château Prieuré-Lichine Margaux. Before anything else was done we opened it and shared a toast to the newest Herbert.
I helped Dad put a desk together in his study. Since his roll-top was now in Hawaii, this was a makeshift plywood unit he had built himself. It was stained black, matching the color of the Port Townsend house trim.
When we finished, he said the familiar and welcome, “Let’s talk story.” Dad went downstairs and brought back a cup of freshly brewed coffee for himself. I didn’t want any, fearing I might tip it over in my nervousness. We were about to look at a novel I had labored over for many months. Sidney’s Comet was now more than 350 pages long.
After a couple of hours, Dad complimented me on my work but said he felt I needed to get my main character, a handicapped government office worker named Sidney Malloy, more centrally involved in the story.
I was given a signed hardcover copy of God Emperor of Dune, and my father said that in addition to his other writing projects he was just beginning work on a sequel to The Jesus Incident, with Bill Ransom. A substantial hardcover advance had been paid by Putnam for the new work.
On a Saturday two weeks later Dad and I took the kids on a hike in the woods while Mom and Jan fixed dinner. On the trek we were accompanied by a new addition to their household, a big gray and white cat who had a curious habit of running alongside us like a dog. It was a foundling they discovered upon returning from Hawaii, and Dad originally named it Caterwaul, for the commotion it made at night. They had it neutered to quiet it down, and renamed it Baron, from Baron Vladimir Harkonnen of Dune. They also enjoyed a certain play on words with that name, a nice double entendre actually, as the cat was now “barren” and unable to produce offspring. He was house-trained, and his only fault seemed to be that he nuzzled in from behind under his mistress’s arm when she was trying to type. Mom had always been fond of cats.
At dinner that evening we learned that my parents had found caretakers for Kawaloa who would eventually live in the separate residence that had already been built for them. They were a couple in their thirties. We had been offered the caretaker’s position some months earlier and had turned it down, because of the isolation of Hana.
God Emperor of Dune had just been released in hardcover and was already a national bestseller. Even before publication, Putnam had been deluged with thousands of advance orders from bookstores anxious to carry it.
“It’s hot,” Dad said.
Special editions of the book had been run—750 boxed and signed copies in addition to the regular printing—and Dad had a number of these stacked on a table in the lower level library, where he was signing them. The hardcover volumes were black, with gold lettering on the spines, and would be sold by the publisher for $45.00 apiece.
We talked at length about our family tree, and I took a lot of notes. Mom said she was proud of me for being so interested in chronicling our family, that we had a lot of interesting things going on that should not be forgotten.
Afterward Jan and my mother occupied themselves with projects in the living room, while Dad and I were in the loft study just above them, going over Sidney’s Comet again, including the rewrites I had done since our last conversation. He said it was very close. It just needed one additional scene and some syntax modifications.
My father praised my writing more than he ever had before. He said I had learned a great deal through hard work and persistence, that my plot was clever and well laid out, with good dialogue and narrative passages. He said I had written a first-rate satire and that it was something of a “pastiche,” a melding of motifs and techniques.
On May Day, 1981, my mother called from Port Townsend and said something was happening on the Dune movie project again. I heard excitement in her voice. They had a number of meetings scheduled with movie people, and producer Dino De Laurentiis was getting a new director, breathing new life into the project.
Three days later, Dad left with Mom on a thirteen-day God Emperor of Dune book tour, with scheduled appearances in Seattle, San Francisco, Berkeley, Los Angeles, Chicago, New York and Boston.
On this and other book tours, my parents developed a routine. Arriving at the airport of a city, Mom would take a taxi to the hotel to register them, while Dad would go off in a taxi or limousine on promotional activities. She liked to bring along a portable Sony radio and miniature Sony television as well, to listen to Dad or watch him during interviews. Mom didn’t want to miss anything no matter where she was. She also made certain he had all of the books or promotional materials he needed for public appearances, and she coordinated his appointments, making certain he didn’t miss one. During the hectic activities of a tour, with thousands of people clamoring for his attention, Dad relied heavily on Mom’s organizational skills. Some of their days were filled with twenty to twenty-four hours of promotional activity, so they got pretty “bleary-eyed,” as Dad said.
When his appearances involved speeches, she wrote promotional flyers and made up press kits, including news articles, photos and other literature about Dad and his writings. She sent these to newspapers, magazines, radio stations and television stations all over the country, a month or two ahead of Dad’s appearances for speeches or autograph parties—to make certain that stories were run on him.
That month Dino De Laurentiis, now in concert with Universal Studios, announced a new director for the Dune project—thirty-five-year-old David Lynch, director of the highly acclaimed films Eraserhead and The Elephant Man. An avid fan of the book, he would write the screenplay himself, and promised a production that would be true to the author’s original. Lynch’s creative talents were not confined to writing and filmmaking. He was a painter, which excited my father for the special visual perspective this art form could bring to the story.
Lynch had come a long way in a short period of time. Only three years before, he had produced and directed Eraserhead for around thirty thousand dollars—a film that went on to become a cult classic. His budget for Dune was initially set at thirty million dollars and would soon go much higher.
In the midst of Frank Herbert’s worldwide fame, his son-in-law, Ron Merritt, asked of him, “Frank, what do you want out of life?”
The response, without equivocation: “First class.”
Dad was never made of patience, and with his success he was required to travel more and more, on book tours, to conventions, to meet with agents and publishers. This took him away from his study, where he really wanted to be, creating new stories. He decided that if he couldn’t write he would demand the best services while he was on the road. In part this was from having experienced the finest hotels and restaurants in the world, so he was using them as standards of comparison. But increasingly he came to demand excellence for the sake of my mother’s comfort and for her dietary requirements. He was extremely protective of her and attentive to her needs.
Thursday, May 28, 1981, was a beautiful seventy-degree day in Seattle, with blue skies and lazy, drifting clouds. My father had been on a local television show for half an hour the previous evening. This morning he was on The Today Show, taped earlier and broadcast nationally from New York. At the office of Stanley T. Scott & Company—the insurance agency where I worked—we watched him on the lunchroom television set. Later in the morning Dad was interviewed by a Seattle radio station.
The radio interview concluded at noon, after which my celebrity father was driven by limousine to a downtown delicatessen for a sandwich. Then he hurried to afternoon autograph
parties at two Seattle bookstores, lasting until 5:30 P.M. We made arrangements to meet at a restaurant that evening.
At dinner, Dad was a bit demanding, which he had a tendency to be at restaurants when he was hungry. Initially we were seated at a table where surrounding conversation was too noisy for us to converse comfortably. Dad went to the maître d’ and demanded another table, which he received, but only after telling the maître d’, “This is a disgusting way to treat a regular customer.” On other occasions Dad would stand at the front counter waiting for a table, positioning himself so that he interfered with the normal flow of patrons and employees. In this manner he was able to get seated sooner, as the restaurant wanted to get him out of the way. It was a trick he had learned from another science fiction writer.
Once we had our table, Dad was in fine form. He told such an amazing array of interesting stories and jokes that people at nearby tables were eavesdropping, even laughing at Dad’s punch lines. Howie Hansen and his new wife, Joanne, were with us this evening, and on one occasion Howie said something about computers. Dad disagreed with the comment, and became very authoritative.
It was characteristic of my father that he never admitted he was wrong about anything. He was “super-knowledgeable,” as my mother put it. Everything he said came out as if it was supported by the entire research facility of the Encyclopedia Britannica.
This evening I found it all very amusing.
Dad filled us in for several minutes on God Emperor of Dune. It was number four on the New York Times bestseller list for hardcovers, number one on other lists, and even hotter than his biggest previous bestseller, Children of Dune. Berkley Books would come out with the paperback after the hardcover had run its course at around two hundred thousand copies, with one million first-edition paperback copies planned.
He gave me a colorful stand-up cardboard cutout with a spaceship on it, bearing the words “FRANK HERBERT IS SCIENCE FICTION.” It had been printed and distributed by B. Dalton Bookseller and used for promotion of his books.
He said the Dune movie looked like a “go” once more in its long and checkered history. Dino De Laurentiis was talking about a forty-million-dollar production, including a ten million dollar cost overrun guarantee from Universal Studios. Dad said with luck the movie might be completed in a year and a half, but added quickly that he would be surprised if it happened that soon.
“I’ll believe it when I’m sitting in the theater with a box of popcorn,” he quipped.
My father and his longtime best friend, Howie, talked a lot about old times, and in the process told a number of great stories, some of which I had heard previously. Howie told some amusing jokes from the 1950s.
Howie also said when he heard his buddy was going to be on Seattle’s KIRO Radio that morning, he called the show’s producer and asked him to be certain that the moderator, Jim French, didn’t ask the usual stupid questions my father had faced on other programs. “This man has something important to say,” Howie said. “Ask him something intelligent.” He went on to tell the producer that Frank Herbert was a member of a writing team when he created his great novels. My mother, Howie said, was the other member of that team.
“Tell French to ask about Bev,” Howie said.
And French did exactly that, eliciting an emotion-filled expression of gratitude from Dad for her contributions to his life and career.
When Dad felt it was time to leave the dinner table, he rose first, and the rest of us followed. I had seen this interesting phenomenon in my business career as well—the boss rising first and the rest following. The dominant person who knew he was in control.
On the way back to the room, I walked with Dad and noticed, for the first time, that he always walked half a shoulder ahead, never content to relax and fall in beside or behind another person. He was a man with an incredible energy source. A dynamo.
I realized as I got to know my father that he wanted it all. He wanted strong family ties, and he tried hard in that direction. But he wanted celebrity status, too, which left him less time to be with his family. Ironically, he had become a hero to millions of readers, despite his professed aversion to heroes—a key point of his most famous series of books. If he was ever asked whether he considered himself a guru, he invariably quipped that he was planning to open Herbertville in Guyana to house the inner circle of his cult, and he needed someone to handle the Kool-Aid concession for him. Or he might say, with disarming humility, “I’m nobody.”
The following morning, Mom and Dad caught a plane to Hawaii, where they checked on the progress of construction. After that they flew on to Australia, where Dad was guest of honor at a big science fiction convention. From Australia, Mom sent postcards to Julie and Kim with pictures of baby kangaroos in the pouches of their mothers.
They flew to Singapore, where they stayed at the famous Raffles Hotel, but for only one night. “The service has gone to pot,” Dad told me later. A new Raffles Convention Center was being built near the hotel, and they felt the area was becoming too tourist-oriented. They found another hotel.
Then on to Zurich, where they stayed in a second-floor suite in the elegant Dolder Grand Hotel. After that they spent a couple of days in Scotland touring castles and a week in Ireland, where Dad researched the setting of his new novel, The White Plague. He had contracted with Putnam to write this book under a package arrangement with God Emperor of Dune. In Ireland he obtained maps, coastline charts and other documents, and took hundreds of photographs, tracing the entire path he had in mind for characters in his book.
“When we were in Ireland,” Mom would report to me later, “I saw you everywhere.” This was in reference to my facial features, which she said were very Irish.
Ireland was followed by London, where Dad called upon his favorite tailor, Anderson & Sheppard, from whom he ordered a suit. He and Mom then took a one-day side trip to Birmingham for an autograph party, where hundreds of English fans queued around the block to purchase his books and obtain autographs.
Early in July, I completed Sidney’s Comet and mailed it to an agent in New York City. His name was Clyde Taylor, and he had been recommended by my father after I’d experienced difficulty finding an agent. Following Dad’s advice I set immediately to work on another novel, a sequel about a magical universe in which comets were sentient life forms. My new novel, The Garbage Chronicles, would resume the satirical ecology theme from Sidney’s Comet, about garbage catapulted into deep space.
Chapter 29
Some Things My Father Did Well
IN THE summer of 1981, Frank Herbert received the biggest science fiction book contract in history for Heretics of Dune (“Dune 5”). Part of the deal was a high-limit accident insurance policy, to be paid for by the publisher. To reduce income taxes, he was receiving the funds over several years.
Mom kept saying she couldn’t believe the size of the contract, but there was good reason for it. God Emperor of Dune was a phenomenal bestseller, and the sales of the entire Dune series, now at four books, were exploding. A full-page Washington Post article ran that year about the tremendous success of God Emperor. Putnam’s hardcover edition of the book had a sphinx on the cover, but in the newspaper article the artist drew Frank Herbert’s bearded face on the sphinx!
Soon, Dad’s literary agent was in London negotiating for the book rights to Dune 6,” as yet untitled. Dad expected to receive more than twice as much for it as he had received for Heretics.
During the next writing session with my father at Xanadu, I saw maps of Ireland displayed in the study—and Dad showed me several slides of Dublin and of the completed Kawaloa caretaker’s house. His upcoming novel based in Ireland, The White Plague, would begin with a man’s family being killed by a bomb explosion in Dublin. On the maps, Dad showed me the path of the story in detail, across the Republic of Ireland. He pointed out a place they visited in County Clare on the west coast—Spanish Point—where a large portion of Philip II’s Spanish Armada ended up on the rocks in September
1588. He also showed me a burgee from the Royal Cork Yacht Club in Ireland that he intended to fly on his own sailboat. It was a triangular red banner with a harp maiden and a crown on it, based upon the burgee design of the first yacht club in the world, established there in 1720.
Dad and I played Hearts that evening, and he beat me soundly.
The next morning, Sunday, he was preparing hot chocolate and toast for us, with Hawaiian guava jelly, and I said to him in a mock-pitiful tone, “You didn’t have to win every game of cards, did you? Couldn’t you have lost just one to make me feel better?”
He smiled impishly and replied, “There are some things I don’t do well.”
When we left to return home, Dad gave me a ball-point pen on a leather neck strap, a pen that he had used for autograph parties. I liked the gift very much, not only for its utility but for its symbolism. The writing instrument clicked in and out of a clip on a necklace that remained around the neck. He said he had a number of them in a variety of colors, purchased at a stationery store in London.
I was busy with my writing during this time. In addition to the novel, I was collaborating with an elderly friend, Walt Green. We were putting together a collection of aphorisms that had grown quickly to five books. A number of local stores were carrying my Classic Comebacks book, which buoyed my spirits—and Jan helped even more by asking other stores to order the book.
In mid-July, I learned that Mom had been coughing a little. She said it had begun some weeks before, after touring a damp and drafty Scottish castle. It was nothing, she assured us, and had been improved with medication prescribed by a Port Townsend doctor.
But on July 27, Dad called from Port Townsend and said in an unsteady voice that Mom had been diagnosed by a local doctor as having pericarditis, meaning the pericardium (the membranous sac containing her heart) had been filling with fluid, placing a strain on the heart. She was tiring easily, and was short of breath. Her lungs were congested. Dad said he would be taking her into Group Health Hospital in Redmond in two days. He assured me that it was a correctable condition, and that the recovery period on pericarditis was dramatic. “The prognosis is good for a full recovery,” he said. Still, I heard the strain in his voice.
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