Listen to the Echoes: The Ray Bradbury Interviews Book

I disagree with so many of Bradbury's opinions (Reagan was one of the best presidents; 2001 was a terrible film; In Cold Blood was Capote's worst book; Norman Mailer and Jackson Pollock are worthless; Joyce, Proust, and Nabokov are boring; Andy Warhol was an idiot; plot is more important than formal style), but I can't help liking this man after reading this collection of interviews conducted during the last decade by his biographer, Sam Weller. Now in his nineties, Bradbury is so full of love for life, the movies, writing, toys, his family, art, architecture, radio, comics, women, and his fans that his enthusiasm is infectious. The book is a bit superficial and can occasionally get bogged down in anecdotes about meeting celebrity fans and weeping with joy at nearly everything (the man is a true softy and everything he finds beautiful makes him cry), Bradbury shies away from revealing too much about his own behavior and ideas, and Weller is clearly an adoring super-fan, but it's an enjoyable, readable, beautifully designed book. Both elusive and honest, Bradbury has the ability to confound expectations. A political conservative, Bradbury nevertheless ardently supports gay marriage, finds the Patriot Act stupid, hates Eisenhower and Joseph McCarthy, is defiantly anti-war (particularly in the case of Vietnam), doesn't believe in organized religion, and has some complex and nuanced takes on Carter, Clinton, Bush I, and JFK. He is old-fashioned, a little square, a bit of a prude, and a Luddite (he doesn't own a computer, has never driven a car, and didn't fly until he was in his sixties), except when he's not. He's uncomfortable with cultural depictions of sexuality, profanity, violence, drug use, and crime, but he's frank about his own sex life, his two extra-marital affairs (he remains unapologetic and matter of fact about them), his love for the music of David Bowie, a hilarious recounting of his enjoyable time eating pot brownies (his only experience with illegal drugs, they made him think his penis was 12 inches long, so he kept eating them), and a penchant for getting drunk with famous friends. The most substantive chapters discuss his writing process, which is where I found my favorite quote in the book. He's asked how he returned to writing so quickly after the deaths of several family members when he was young and his wife's death from natural causes in 2003: "Work is the only answer. I have three rules to live by: Get your work done. If that doesn't work, shut up and drink your gin, and when all else fails, run like hell."