How Charles Addams helped Ray Bradbury’s monster family in ‘From the Dust Returned’
“I believe in this more than I have believed in anything in my writing career,” Bradbury told collaborator Charles Addams.
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Ray Bradbury, one of literature’s most beloved storytellers, spent his career escorting readers to dark and intriguing places, from street corners in unfamiliar towns to the edge of the universe. During this epic, in one project a half-century in the making, he took readers to a special destination—into the heart of a monster family.
Like his legendary The Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury’s novel From the Dust Returned is a fantasy novel that is actually a threaded-together collection of related short stories. Connected to the artwork of the creator of the Addams Family, and published as a novel in 2001, the book is packed with related short stories Bradbury wrote decades earlier, centering on a family of Illinois-based ghosts and monsters.
Filled with tales of the Elliotts, the six previously published stories originally appeared in the magazines Weird Tales, Saturday Evening Post, and Mademoiselle, plus anthologies The Toynbee Convector, Dark Carnival, and The October Country. The book includes three new short stories, plus bits written to connect the various tales together.
“Bradbury makes some strong points in this book. Being different is good. Do everything with a passion. Most importantly, not all monsters are bad. It’s a beautiful work worthy of your time.”—I Would Rather Be Reading
The Elliotts have lived for centuries in a house of legend and mystery in upper Illinois—and aren’t like other midwesterners. Rarely encountered in daylight hours, their children are curious and wild; their old ones have survived since before the Sphinx first sank its paws deep in Egyptian sands. And some sleep in beds with lids.
Now the house is being readied in anticipation of the gala homecoming that will gather together the farflung branches of this odd and remarkable family. In the past-midnight stillness can be detected the soft fluttering of Uncle Einars wings.
From her realm of sleep, Cecy, the fairest and most special daughter, can feel the approach of many a welcome being—shapeshifter, telepath, somnambulist, vampire—as she flies high in the consciousness of bird and bat.
But in the midst of eager anticipation, a sense of doom pervades. For the world is changing. And death, no stranger, will always shadow this most singular family: Father, arisen from the Earth; Mother, who never sleeps but dreams; A Thousand Times Great Grandmére; Grandfather, who keeps the wildness of youth between his ears.
And the boy who, more than anyone, carries the burden of time on his shoulders: Timothy, the sad and different foundling son who must share it all, remember, and tell—and who, alone out of all of them, must one day age and wither and die.
By turns lyrical, wistful, poignant, and chilling, the first edition of From the Dust Returned featured a cover illustration by Addams Family creator Charles Addams, originally made to accompany the 1946 publication of the first Elliott story, “Homecoming,” in Mademoiselle. The Elliotts bear a strong resemblance to Addams’ own characters. Bradbury and Addams discussed developing a history of the Elliotts, but that project never happened.
“The plan was to create an anthology of stories and illustrations over a period of years. They pitched the idea to publishers, who were interested enough to start planning a book made with black paper and white type. In the end, Addams’s high fee made publishers step back, and both men moved on. ‘The years passed, some stories were written, we stayed in touch but went our separate ways,’ Bradbury later wrote. Addams further developed his own macabre bunch, inking a deal to turn his New Yorker drawings into a TV series called The Addams Family.”—Mental Floss
Buy From the Dust Returned from Amazon.
