Summary

In Flowers for Algernon, Daniel Keyes created an unlikely duo-a laboratory mouse and a man-who captured the hearts of millions of readers around the world. Now, in Algernon, Charlie, and I, Keyes reveals his methods of creating fiction as well as the heartbreaks and joys of being published. With admirable insight he shares with readers, writers, teachers, and students the creative life behind his classic novel, included here in its original short-story form. All those who love stories, storytelling, and the remarkable characters of Charlie and Algernon will delight in accompanying their creator on this inspirational voyage of discovery.

Author Biography

Daniel Keyes, the author of eight books, has worked as a fiction editor, high school teacher, and university professor. He lives in Boca Raton, Florida.

The Maze of Time
My Writing Cellar	p. 3
The White Mouse	p. 9
Second Acting	p. 15
Breaking Dishes	p. 20
I Become Ship's Doctor	p. 29
From Ship to Shrink
Inkblots	p. 47
The Boy on Book Mountain	p. 53
Silence of the Psychoanalysts	p. 61
First Published Stories	p. 68
Editing Pulps and Writing Comic Books	p. 76
Mind Over Matter
Looking for Charlie	p. 85
Charlie Finds Me	p. 88
Getting There	p. 94
Rejection and Acceptance	p. 103
The Alchemy of Writing
Transformations: From Story to Teleplay to Novel	p. 111
Rejected Again	p. 117
Of Love and Endings	p. 124
We Find a Home	p. 132
Post-Publication Blues
"Don't Hide Your Light Under a Bushel"	p. 141
When Are Writers Like Saints?	p. 147
Charly Goes Hollywood	p. 150
Broadway Bound	p. 157
And Then What Happened?	p. 167
Afterword: My "What Would Happen If...?" Is Happening	p. 174
Acknowledgments	p. 179
Flowers for Algernon: Complete original novelette version	p. 183
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

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Excerpts

MY WRITING CELLARI NEVER THOUGHT it would happen to me.When I was very young and very nearsighted-20/400 vision, everything blurred without my eyeglasses-I believed that someday I'd go blind. So I planned ahead. I strove to be neat, a place for everything and everything in its place. I blindfolded myself and practiced retrieving things without seeing, and I was proud that I could find anything quickly in the dark.I didn't go blind. In fact, with eyeglasses my vision is excellent.I can still put my hands on most things I possess. Not because I remember where I put them, but because I take the time to put them away carefully, in logical places. I just have to remember where they belong. What's happening to me is something I never considered. I start out to do something, go somewhere, walk into another room to get something, but then I have to pause. What am I looking for? Then it quickly clicks into place. It's momentary but frightening. And I think of Charlie Gordon at the end of Flowers for Algernon, saying, "I remember I did something but I don't remember what."Why am I thinking of the fictional character I created more than forty years ago? I try to put him out of my mind, but he won't let me.Charlie is haunting me, and I've got to find out why.I've decided the only way I can put him to rest is to go back through the maze of time, search for his origins, and exorcise the ghosts of memories past. Perhaps, along the way, I'll also learn when, how, and why I became a writer.Getting started is the hardest thing. I tell myself, you've got the material. You don't have to make it up-just remember it, shape it. And you don't have to create a fictional narrator's voice the way you did for the story and then the novel. This is you, writing about writing, and remembering the secrets of your own life that became the life of Charlie Gordon.The opening of the story echoes in my mind: "Dr. Strauss says I shud rite down what I think and evrey thing that happins to me from now on. I dont know why but he says its importint so they will see if they will use me. I hope they use me. Miss Kinnian says maybe they can make me smart. I want to be smart. My name is Charlie Gordon..."Although the original novelette begins with those words, that's not how it all started. Nor are his final words about putting "flowrs...in the bak yard" the end of his story. I remember clearly where I was the day the ideas that sparked the story first occurred to me.One crisp April morning in 1945, I climbed the steps to the elevated platform of the Sutter Avenue BMT station in Brownsville, Brooklyn. I'd have a ten- or fifteen-minute wait for the train that would take me to Manhattan, where I would change for the local to the Washington Square branch of New York University.I recall wondering where I would get the money for the fall semester. My freshman year had used up most of the savings I'd accumulated by working at several jobs, but there wouldn't be enough left

Excerpted from Algernon, Charlie, and I: A Writer's Journey by Daniel Keyes
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