Gauntlet Press has assembled a number of books of Ray Bradbury miscellany before, but MASKS is the best one I’ve seen yet. As explained in the intro, the legendary author has long been fascinated by the faces we put on for others, therefore not remaining true to our selves.
In the mid 1940s, he sought to explore this theme in a novel titled THE MASKS. For whatever reason, it was abandoned, but a full summary, preliminary outline and assorted fragments exist, unearthed from Bradbury’s vast files and assembled for this exciting volume. There’s no reason to assume that, if finished, THE MASKS wouldn’t stand alongside his other classics like THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES.
Its protagonist is William Latting, who has amassed an impressive collection of masks from all over the world. Depending on the situation, he always wears one of them; he even carries malleable clay to form any type of mask in an emergency. No one has seen his real face since he was 18 years old.
He wears masks to woo lovers, only to have certain visages repel them. He dons masks to get out of sticky situations, only to see his methods ultimately doom him. It’s a startling scenario, but don’t get too attached to it, since the whole story never came to be. But judging from the description of the tale as intended and the fragments that were found (printed as their original typewritten pages, typos and all, and supplemented with Bradbury’s doodles), it’s quite a brilliant work, more disturbing than his usual subject matter.
By now, it’s hard to believe there are any short stories of his that remain unpublished, but this collection ends with seven of them, all related to the theme of identity. “The Face of Natalie” is the first of them, in which a woman gets back at her husband by undergoing plastic surgery so her face can never show emotion toward him. In “They Never Got Mad,” a shallow man lays a different woman each night in his one-room apartment, until his landlord puts an end to his sexual shenanigans. (It’s a little weird to see Bradbury writing about a man-whore, incidentally.)
Speaking of landlords, another kicks a tenant out in “The Drothldo,” for reasons I can’t reveal, but which won’t surprise anyone used to the author’s themes of social justice. “The Walker in the Night” concerns a man who starts sleepwalking until woken by his wife; they wonder how far he would go if not stopped, and decide to see.
“Gallagher the Great” is about a magician who suddenly gives up on his act halfway through and becomes attracted to a wax dummy. An element of “Gallagher” is cribbed for the two-page “The Doll,” which has the feel of being unfinished, more of a sketch than a story.
Don’t be turned off by the idea of buying an unfinished novel, because its plot is so compelling that you’ll be rewarded for reading the 30ish pages that were completed. The stories are true icing-on-the-cake bonuses — ones that flesh out the main attraction rather than being tacked on to hit a minimum page count. MASKS is a must for Bradbury collectors, and not just the completists. —Rod Lott
Buy it at Amazon or Gauntlet Press.
“Every night there was a different one. He held up his hands and took hold of the flesh of them and kissed their breasts. They danced for him, obscene shifting dances and slapped them viciously where it hurt most.”
OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS AUTHOR:
• THE DRAGON WHO ATE HIS TAIL by Ray Bradbury
• MATCH TO FLAME: THE FICTIONAL PATHS TO FAHRENHEIT 451 by Ray Bradbury
• NOW AND FOREVER by Ray Bradbury
• SOMEWHERE A BAND IS PLAYING by Ray Bradbury
