Unveiling the Complex Legacies of Bernstein, Brooks, Freidan, and Mailer: A Provocative Review by David Denby
Denby provides numerous anecdotes about the early years of his characters (and they are all real characters), which cannot be retailed here. But I must include one, concerning Brooks, which is too delicious to leave out. When he was five, he saw the 1931 original Frankenstein, with the unforgettable Boris Karloff in the lead role. He was frightened, worried that monster would get him when he was asleep.
“On a hot summer night, he closed the window near his bed. But Kitty [his mother] wanted some air in the fifth-floor apartment, and, according to Mel, held forth as follows: “In order for Frankenstein to bite you, he’s got to leave Russia, Transylvania, wherever he’s from. First, he has to catch a train to a seaport. Then he’s got to have money to get on a boat, a ship, to go all the way from Romania to America. Then when he lands in America, in New York, he’s got to know which subway to take to get to Williamsburg. Then he’s got to know which apartment to go to. If he climbs up the fire escape, any of the windows . . . he’ll eat someone on the first floor, why would he climb to the fifth floor?”
