Product Description

This is a novel by the author of "Hold Tight".

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1022733 in Books
• Published on: 1996-04-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

Amazon.com Review
This novel--the basis for the critically acclaimed 1998 film Gods and Monsters--re-creates the last days of film director James Whale, who was found dead in his swimming pool, an apparent suicide, in 1957. Bram offers sharp insights into the darkly comic sensibility that infuses Whale's two most famous films, Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein, as memories of an impoverished English childhood, the trenches of World War I, and Hollywood studios compete for space in a mind whose defenses have been weakened by a stroke. Written in the fluid present tense of a cinematic treatment, Father of Frankenstein is a powerful evocation of an era before Hollywood celebrities could proclaim anything but domestic heterosexuality to the outside world.

From Publishers Weekly
In this ingeniously imagined novel, Bram (Hold Tight) makes fiction out of the aged expatriate British filmmaker James Whale's last days. Whale, living in Hollywood and recovering from a minor stroke, finds life grotesquely refracted through his greatest creation, Frankenstein starring Boris Karloff, and its campy sequel, The Bride of Frankenstein. His mind is a cutting room-floor jumble of olfactory hallucinations, nightmares and flashbacks to his working-class childhood, the sets of his horror movies and the gore-muddied trenches of WWI. Meanwhile, like unwitting furies, a sycophantic film student and Whale's ex-Marine gardener, Clay Boone, churn up his past and impel him to scheme a suitable grand finale for himself. In a wickedly disconcerting series of scenes, Whale directs a mad plot around the short-fused Clay, who, attracted by Whale's old Hollywood glamour but creeped out by his homosexuality, vaguely wants to extract the experience of a lifetime out of the famous figure?"combat, a love affair, a harrowing adventure, even a crime." With amusing cameos by Elsa Lanchester, Greta Garbo and George Cukor, Bram cleverly mines his material's potential from nostalgia and comedy to the grimmer secrets of carnal and charnel knowledge.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Bram follows his large and impressive fourth novel, Almost History (1992), with something smaller and less impressive because deliberately obscure. He takes the last days of James Whale, the movie director responsible for the classic horror films Frankenstein (1932) and Bride of Frankenstein (1935), as his theme and reacts to the mysteriousness of Whale's death (his body was found in a swimming pool he hadn't used for years). Bram imagines that Whale, mentally confounded after a stroke, schemed to have himself killed by provoking a homophobic attack by his gardener, a husky failed marine whom the homosexual director found attractive. Flashbacks bring in some figures less recondite than Whale (Charles Laughton and Elsa Lanchester) but not with enough color to lift the novel from the 1950s roman noir doldrums into which, despite some interesting writing, it often falls. Whale's tiny fandom and those who keep track of Bram as one of the best gay novelists constitute this minor performance's natural readership. Ray Olson

Customer Reviews

A Whale of a Tale
Historical fiction Hollywood style - circa 1957. Film director James Whale ('Frankenstein' and 'Bride of Frankenstein') suffers from mental erosion as a complication from his recent stroke. His life is now ruled by his past and the random surfacing of memories - childhood, poverty, horrific experiences in the trenches during WWI, his days as a celebrated film director, his life as a gay man in Hollywood, etc. It's all uncontrolled and very painful. Whale finds the fact that he will eventually lose his mind even more unbearable. Enter Clay Boone - a straight, hunky, "monster-sized" gardener hungry for life experience and drawn to the aged celebrity. Seeing Clay gives Whale an idea - he'll somehow have the monster/man kill him, therefore giving his life a sort of fitting conclusion. He will be the director of his death as well. FATHER OF FRANKENSTEIN traces the developing relationship between Whale and Clay over the course of several weeks with surprising twists and equally moving turns as events progress towards a rewarding conclusion. A brilliantly imagined novel, a rich historical atmosphere, and a riveting character study. A wonderful read. Frightening, funny, sexy, and very unique.

Imaginative, Beautifully Written
This wonderful novel is instantly engrossing and will captivate readers throughout. An imaginative, fictional take on the life of film director James Whale, the author writes with uncanny objectivity, sensitivity and insight. Its exquisite detail and impact are hidden under the seeming simplicity but manage to ring out, chapter after chapter.

Those familiar with the film version, "Gods and Monsters," will find a new appreciation not only for the story itself but for the filmmakers' loyalty to this great book.

Father of Frankenstein
Christopher Bram does it again with yet another brilliant novel. The depth and the intelligence of this book and his ability to bring the characters so alive shows his ability as a novelist. If you only read one or a couple of books a year make it this one.
Highly Recommended indeed.