Dreamer of Dune (35 page)

On the first of October, I mailed my just-completed three-hundred-page manuscript of
Sidney's Comet
to Dad, with this note: “I'm very tired, but I have a feeling I'm not finished yet! It seems there's no end to pages that need correcting…”

Later that month my father returned the manuscript with a note written on a yellow sheet of paper that had been wrinkled by typing strikes from other sheets on top of it. I recognized this as a sheet placed beneath another to prevent striking the platen too hard, thus avoiding indentations on the platen. His note said, “These pages…22–27…show how editing tightens the story. Go now and do likewise.”
^*
These six pages were closely edited, while others had fewer notations on them.

I spoke with Mom shortly before the November 1980 presidential election. She said that she and Dad had been arguing about politics, since she held a high opinion of Ronald Reagan, while Dad loathed him. Recently my father had purchased what he called a “voice stress analyzer,” a little handheld device that when activated could supposedly tell when a person was lying. He had been pointing it at the television during Reagan's speeches, and periodically Dad would exclaim, “Reagan's lying again! Bev, come in here and look at this meter!”

A while later, Mom wrote to me on her new stationery, with “Kawaloa” printed on it in large letters beside a drawing of the house.

While my parents were in Hawaii, the
Dune
movie project came unraveled again. As Harlan Ellison reported in the June 1985 issue of
Fantasy & Science Fiction,
the third draft of Rudolph Wurlitzer's screenplay included an incestuous relationship between Paul and Jessica. As Ellison put it, “Have you ever heard Frank Herbert bellow with rage?”

I heard it on a number of occasions, including this one. Dad said that he wasn't interested in any variation of this theme, including one in which Alia—Paul's sister, as Dad wrote
Dune
—becomes his daughter as well.

Appalled, Frank Herbert told Dino De Laurentiis that
Dune
fans would never tolerate an incestuous relationship between their beloved characters, and De Laurentiis agreed. To make matters worse, director Ridley Scott, who had spent months in the early stages of production, now had to leave for another film he was under contract to direct,
Blade Runner.
Once again, the long-awaited film version of the greatest science fiction novel of all time,
Dune,
had no director and no screenplay.

In mid-December, I mailed a satirical science fiction short story to my father for his opinion. Called “Earth Games,” it was about an alien world where Earth people were kept prisoner and forced to perform games with hot-rod automobiles. Those games strongly resembled rush-hour commute times in any major city, when drivers competed for lane space and made unfriendly gestures at one another. A slight difference: these cars had machine guns on the fenders and cannons on the rooftops.

As before, I could not telephone my parents before noon, since Dad wrote in the mornings. Now I had to calculate the difference in time zones, since it was three hours earlier in Hawaii than in Seattle. During phone conversations with my mother, at all hours of the afternoon or evening, she invariably said Dad was writing in another room—and she could hear the rapid machine rhythm of his electric typewriter. This time, however, I heard Dad playing his harmonica in the background, a happy sound I hadn't heard in a long while.

She said Dad was setting aside the custom computer system he had been designing and building with Max Barnard. The technology was changing too rapidly, Dad thought, and he was considering the purchase of a stock computer and printer. He planned to study available systems upon returning to the mainland.

In those conversations across the Pacific, I realized how much the Hana area reminded my parents of rural Mexico. They described tropical, verdant colors, and the relaxed work ethic of the dark-skinned natives, in which tasks were often put off for another day.

And I realized something else as well. My father, a most imperfect man, had done an absolutely perfect thing for the woman he loved. The construction he undertook at Kawaloa was his gallant effort to save her life, or at the very least to make what remained of it pleasurable.

I
N MID
-J
ANUARY
1981, Dad and Mom called, one on each line from Kawaloa. Because of the underwater telephone cable between Hawaii and the mainland, their voices sounded as if they were coming from the insides of coffee cans, and I heard static. They spoke sadly of my first cousin Matt Larson and a hiking companion, who had lost their lives on Mount Hood in Oregon that winter.

Recently my parents had shipped their '80 Mercedes coupe to me from Hawaii, for safekeeping. They wanted me to take care of a number of maintenance items on it. Several boxes were also being sent to us “for baby-sitting,” as my mother put it. They had packed the trans-ocean container hastily in Port Townsend, and had things they would never use in the tropics, including tire chains, snowshoes, ski poles, wool-lined boots and even a goodly amount of fishing equipment they couldn't use since fishing was done differently in Hawaii, using long poles or spear guns. Brass and metal items were coming back as well, including rifles, to protect them from the moist, corrosive salt air of Kawaloa. In addition, they were experiencing problems with some articles of wood furniture that were warping from moisture in the air. The jeep I had shipped to them was running well, but was too drafty for Mom. They were thinking of trading it in on a more enclosed vehicle, such as a Chevrolet Blazer or Ford Bronco.

Then they said something heartening. Xanadu had been listed for sale for several months without offers, largely because of a depressed economy in the area. They had decided not to sell the property after all. It would be one of their “bases of operation,” as my father put it. He had also decided to keep the sailboat
Caladan.

Judging from all of this, taking the wrong car and other things to Hawaii, as well as their indecision about keeping Xanadu and the sailboat, it was clear they were making decisions emotionally, without adequate planning. It made me wonder if my mother might be even more ill than they were letting on, if she had received bad medical news that we hadn't been told about yet. Everything they did was in a big rush, a desperate surging this way and that.

But every time I asked how Mom was feeling, she or my father said, “fine” or “great” or “much improved.” She had survived inoperable lung cancer since 1974. This was nothing less than a triumph of human spirit. She had fought the disease, refusing to succumb to it. My parents spoke of wanting a swimming pool for her at Kawaloa, so that she could resume her exercise regime. She missed the laps in the pool in Port Townsend.

They were living in the caretaker's house, though it was not quite complete, and mentioned difficulties with the main house plans. Dad had obtained bids based upon his architect's drawings, and found construction would cost millions more than he wanted to spend. Beyond that he felt the house was more suited to the Pacific Northwest, where the architect lived.

In researching homes that were best suited to the Hana area, he contacted entertainers Jim Nabors and Richard Pryor and a number of other locals, all of whom were kind enough to show my father through their homes. He determined that the best and most cost-effective dwelling to build was a pole-house, where the structure sits up off the ground on a heavy piling foundation. The house would have a manually operated louver system in the walls, a feature that would permit outside air to circulate inside, cooling the home. In outward appearance it would most resemble the Nabors' home.

Dad drew up his own plans, and had them transformed to blueprint form by a structural engineer. The site was on a hillside, which presented difficulties in making the home accessible to a heart patient. He tried to place most of the areas Mom needed to reach every day on one level, including the swimming pool, the main living areas and the master bedroom. He didn't want her to have to climb stairs. Additionally, since Dad was acquainted with marine architecture, he would incorporate a number of boat features into the design.

The main house had to go in before the pool could be begun. At first Dad wanted to utilize wind power from constant trade winds to heat the pool, but he opted instead to heat it with solar panels. These panels would be factory-built, and not the unique beer-can variety he had designed for Port Townsend.

While he was explaining this to me, something came up with the contractors and he had to leave the telephone. Mom stayed on and told me about Hana. It was the most beautiful place she had ever seen.

In ensuing weeks we had numerous telephone conversations, discussing family business and personal matters that they wanted me to handle for them, and the other day-to-day activities of our lives. In one conversation, Mom said a neighbor gave a party and she won a Smith-field ham. As she spoke to me she was gazing out upon three palm trees below the house, and said a lovely, warm breeze had been blowing all day. “I've been painting,” she said. “Flowers, the sea, cattle in the fields…This is an artist's paradise. I only wish I had more talent.”

Early in the morning of April 11, 1981, a Saturday, we brought boxes and packages of my parents' things to them in Port Townsend, stuff shipped back from Hawaii. A number of fishing poles were in aluminum tubes, and some of the boxes were quite heavy, being full of brass and steel items. The weather was brisk, in the forties but feeling colder from the wind.

Mom and Dad looked tan but tired. They had been back only a few days, and still hadn't adjusted to the change of climate. He had been trying to write, but didn't have the energy to go full steam.

After lunch my father and I played Hearts at the dining room table, while Mom and Jan sat in the living room, talking.

“One thing was sent back here that should have remained in Hawaii,” my mother said. “
Me
.” She wore a heavy sweater, and was curled up in a lounge chair with an orange and brown Afghan blanket over her. “Look outside,” she said.

Dad and I glanced up from our card game. Hail was coming down!

She spoke about how much warmer it was at Kawaloa, with warm trade winds blowing. They planned to return to Port Townsend a little later the following year, in May, staying through October or November. Dad needed two hundred days of residency on the mainland because of extremely high state income taxes in Hawaii, yet another detail he had overlooked in the rush to move there. By spending that amount of time away from Hawaii, his income would not be taxed under Hawaiian law.

They said the caretaker's house was finished on their property and was very comfortable. Ground was just being broken for the main house.

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.