(Originally appeared in Masters of the Weird Tale: William F. Nolan, Centipede Press, 2018.)
Centipede Press published a massive and strikingly beautiful collection of Bill Nolan’s corpus of short fiction and invited some fellow writers to enhance the compilation with short encomiums (encomia?) to Bill.
I was invited to participate, and this is what I wrote:
The longer you hang around in the writing biz, the harder it is to remember when you met who and where. That’s the way it is with Bill Nolan and me. I am absolutely positive I didn’t meet him at a backyard barbecue or a wedding or a wake, and it didn’t happen at a laundromat or the produce aisle of the Ranch Market. Which means I am almost 100% certain I met Bill at one of the hundreds of genre conventions I’ve attended over the last 40 years.
Which one?
Only God knows the answer to that one because the odds are good we were both at the hotel bar or the con suite and there was most likely, as they say, “alcohol involved.” However, I do remember a couple things about our first meeting: one, Bill had that charming, impish grin of Leprechaun that told me instantly I was going to like this guy; and two, he was a natural storyteller. There were a bunch of fans and writers gathered around him as he recounted one of his countless Hollyweird experiences, and he held everyone’s attention with the aplomb of an artful Svengali.
And while my memory may be a little cloudy on the details of that encounter, I remember with singular clarity the moment I discovered Bill Nolan’s writing. At the urging of Stu Schiff, at the 1985 World Fantasy Convention, I picked up a copy of Things Beyond Midnight, a classic collection of horror and dark fantasy tales. On my flight back to the East Coast, I read almost the entire book, gobbling up one story after another. Not to put too fine a point on it, this guy, William F. Nolan, could write his ass off. Every piece in the collection was a winner—not one stinkbomb in the bunch. Clever, confident narration, tight dialogue, and nice original takes on even some of the more familiar horror tropes.
I became a Nolan fan somewhere over Indiana and remained as such to this day.
And so, in the fullness of time, I would often run into Bill at conventions or on my infrequent trips to Los Angeles to see my film agent or to make yet one more futile attempt to pitch my wares to a bored producer. A bunch of writers including Dennis Etchison, Bill Nolan, Mike Cassutt, and Dave Bischoff used to team up with me to sample some of the more elegant clubs and bars where we always seemed to endure the misfortune of having naked young women’s dancing and prancing distract us from our simple desires to enjoy a good cocktail. I’m still not sure how we always seemed to have that kind of bad luck, but I swear it happened time and again.
I recall one night in particular when Kim Newman, having jaunted over from England for a bit of California relaxation, had joined our merry band of thrillseekers. Kim marveled at Bill’s Nolan’s ever-persistent search for a place where we could sit and quietly discuss Proust without being interrupted by the sudden appearance of ladies with names like Amber and Bambi and Tiffany.
But I digress . . . .
As I hinted earlier, one of my favorite things about Bill is urban-folksy delivery when telling us all a story. If you know him at all, you know he’s got a steamer trunkful of tales about Logan’s Run—both the book (collaboration by Bill and George Clayton Johnson) and the subsequent film. Many people only know the Logan material from the movie, but there were several novel sequels, a short-lived TV series, and even a comic book. There were at least two attempts to remake the original Saul David film, and Bill is at his entertaining best when he recounts anecdotes and experiences with the denizens of Hollywood regarding these misadventures.
But there is one story he tells that ranks at the very top. I remember one afternoon at a hotel convention bar, he told a bunch of us sitting around some cocktail tables about his assignment to write a MOW (movie of the week) script based on the original Universal Studios film, The Mummy. Bill wrote with his usual energy and enthusiasm and turned in his script on time. But the story didn’t end there because the producers kept calling him in for revisions and rewrites (for which he was paid nicely), and Bill had us all laughing as he detailed the questions and requests of the producers. I don’t have the space to re-tell the whole story (especially the punchline) and even I don’t have the hubris to presume I could approach Bill’s pitch-perfect delivery.
So just let me say this: it’s not only my favorite story about Hollywood, but it also encapsulates the purest essence of the entertainment industry in all its absurdity.
But it also illustrates one far more important thing—Bill never let that crass and craven aspect of the screenwriter’s world ever affect him. Throughout a long and wondrous career in which he hung out with Richard Matheson, Charles Beaumont, and Ray Bradbury, he remained true to his craft as one of the best storytellers of his generation.
—Thomas F. Monteleone
Baltimore, March 13, 2016
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Grazie mille!
Great idea--and as they say in the commercials: "You'll Be Glad You Did!"
I remember a LONG time ago, when David Gerrold had his 'State of the Art" column, he scoffed at the premise of the novel LOGAN'S RUN, and devoted a significant amount of space panning it, all while admitting he had never read it. WFN responded in a letter column, a bit defensively but justifiably outraged that Gerrold would negatively review a book he hadn't read. WFN went on to mention that he (Nolan) had at least read Gerrold's latest novel, THE MAN WHO FOLDED HIMSELF, before telling anyone how bad it was, offering as a parting shot: "I suggest Mr. Gerrold go fold himself."
And now that I've written at length about this, I just realized how completely off-topic it is if it was George Clayton Johnson who responded to Gerrold's "review." Either way, Go Fold Yourself has been part of my personal vernacular since the late 1970s.