Posted on 06/17/2014 4:52:46 PM PDT by Borges
Keyes is best known for his Hugo Award winning classic SF story “Flowers for Algernon” (F&SF, 1959), the Nebula Award winning and bestselling 1966 novel expansion, and the film version Charly (1968).
Keyes was born August 9, 1927 in New York. He worked variously as an editor, comics writer, fashion photographer, and teacher before joining the faculty of Ohio University in 1966, where he taught as a professor of English and creative writing, becoming professor emeritus in 2000. He married Aurea Georgina Vaquez in 1952, who predeceased him in 2013; they had two daughters.
Keyes began working in SF as an associate editor at Marvel Science Fiction in 1951, and his first SF story was “Precedent” there in 1952. Other novels include The Touch (1968; as The Contaminated Man, 1977), The Fifth Sally (1980), and The Asylum Prophecies (2009). He had other books published in Japan, including novel Until Death Do Us Part: The Sleeping Princess (1998), and wrote true crime volumes including Edgar Award winner The Minds of Billy Milligan (1982), sequel The Milligan Wars: A True-Story Sequel (1994 in Japan, forthcoming in the US), and Unveiling Claudia: A True Story of Serial Murder (1986). His memoir Algernon, Charlie and I: A Writer’s Journey (2000) discusses the experience of writing the story and its impact on his life. Keyes was honored as a SFWA Author Emeritus in 2000.
Keyes lived in south Florida, and is survived by his daughters.
Flowers For Algernon is such a good book.
You’ve probably read this.
Flowers for Algernon is one of the greatest stories ever written. Period.
I always thought it was a metaphor for life- He starts out childlike, then he gets smart (grows into an adult) then he reverts back to a childlike state (old age) I know there is a connection between Charley and Algernon that Keyes was trying to make, but I never really thought about it - Maybe we go through life trying to get that cheese? lol I don’t know.
‘Flowers for Algernon’ is actually one of the most frequently challenged books on school reading lists.
‘Flowers for Algernon’ is actually one of the most frequently challenged books on school reading lists.
RIP I read that book, it was very well done and very, very sad.
RIP.
You’ll be happy to know that Flowers for Algernon is still in the 8th grade Literature book that LAUSD uses, and I teach it often. I also have the movie, and many of my students are very struck by it whenever we cover it. I sometimes follow it up with Forrest Gump.
The film Charly is fairly poor. It’s not a patch on the novel.
Challenged? Why, because it doesn’t promote communism or homosexuality? Oh wait don’t tell me: It mocks the “mentally challenged”.
It has some fairly explicit sexual content. It’s been called “filthy and immoral”.
Made into such a bad movie.
I read the original short story right after it came out. Alas, I never read the novel expansion.
I saw Charly and the 1961, The Two Worlds of Charlie Gordon, as well as the 2000 TV movie, Flowers for Algernon.
I remember reading Flowers for Algernon in junior high. There was another book, “Charlie,” that was based on it and it was also made into a movie in 1968.
Oh wow. Daniel Keyes once came to my alma mater to give a talk on creative writing. He clearly loved teaching creative writing, and was one of a few minority of authors I have met professionally that were real people, not pompous, but down to earth, and genuine.
I actually agree.
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