cross-legged, gazing up at the screen. I read Hitchcock-brand short-story anthologies, too, and listened to the record Alfred Hitchcock’s Ghost Stories for Children until I knew Saki’s Open Window almost by heart. And of course I subscribed to the monthly Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine . When I was in my early thirties, one of my first suspense stories was published there. It touched me deeply to see my own sentences on those much-beloved, pulpy pages.
As for Hitchcock’s movies, they were my favorites, not just of all movies but of all stories anywhere. Innocent men drawn into spy chases and murder plots. Glamorous women caught in traps of suspicion and fear. The weird, sexy tension of Rear Window and Vertigo had a special power over me. A housebound man thinks he might have witnessed a murder in the apartment across the way. A broken cop falls in love with a woman who may be possessed by the dead.
Each film was aired on television only once or twice when I was a boy. 1 Then, tangled in legal complications, the movies were not shown for more than twenty years. As a result, they became locked away in my unconscious. They worked on my brain in there, shaping it unseen. When the films were finally re-released, just as I was turning thirty, one of my brothers and I went to the theater to see them. I was stunned to discover how much of my sense of plotting and timing they had formed without my knowing it. “That Alfred Hitchcock,” I remarked to my brother when the show was over, “he stole everything from me!”
In my teens, I discovered the tough-guy writers. My older brother introduced me to the existential adventure tales of Ernest Hemingway, his favorite. I discovered the hardboiled detective stories of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler on my own.
Toughness was always an ethos in my house. I don’t mean physical toughness necessarily, though that played a part. I’m talking about an attitude of mind: being tough, being cynical, unsentimental, sardonic, detached. That was the way a man was, a real man, or so we believed. A real man didn’t get taken in by sloppy romantic ideals like Honor or Sacrifice or Faith or Charity. He didn’t fall into line behind whatever hypocrite was mouthing rah-rah moral platitudes for the crowd. Group loyalty was for fools. School spirit? Patriotism? They were sucker games. If we identified as Jews, it was because we wouldn’t be pushed around by gentiles, not because we cared all that much about other Jews. If we stood by our family, it was because we knew no one else could be counted on. But we also knew that our family—that all families—were snakepits of envy and hostility. In the end, let’s face it, pal, you lived and died alone.
This attitude originated with my father. It was his personality translated into a worldview.
For twenty-five years, my father was one of the most popular radio entertainers on the air. He was never a national star, but his top-rated show was on during “morning drive,” the most important time slot, in New York City, the biggest market there was. Even aside from his talent and success, there was much to admire about the man. He was honest in business. He had integrity in his art. He was decent and fair to the people who worked with him. Most importantly from my perspective, he was always kind and loving and respectful toward my mother.
But he was a comedian, and not just by profession but by nature too. And like every comedian I’ve ever met, he was angry at his core. His sharp, biting, antic wit bubbled up from an inner cauldron of seething rage. The world was unfair, a conspiracy of big guys against the little guy, namely him. His comedy was a camouflaged hand grenade. Just kidding: kaboom! Intellectual sabotage against the machinery of life.
He had a chip on his shoulder, in other words. A whole stack of chips. About being a Jew in a Gentile universe, about the fact he never finished college, about the fact that serious people
As for Hitchcock’s movies, they were my favorites, not just of all movies but of all stories anywhere. Innocent men drawn into spy chases and murder plots. Glamorous women caught in traps of suspicion and fear. The weird, sexy tension of Rear Window and Vertigo had a special power over me. A housebound man thinks he might have witnessed a murder in the apartment across the way. A broken cop falls in love with a woman who may be possessed by the dead.
Each film was aired on television only once or twice when I was a boy. 1 Then, tangled in legal complications, the movies were not shown for more than twenty years. As a result, they became locked away in my unconscious. They worked on my brain in there, shaping it unseen. When the films were finally re-released, just as I was turning thirty, one of my brothers and I went to the theater to see them. I was stunned to discover how much of my sense of plotting and timing they had formed without my knowing it. “That Alfred Hitchcock,” I remarked to my brother when the show was over, “he stole everything from me!”
In my teens, I discovered the tough-guy writers. My older brother introduced me to the existential adventure tales of Ernest Hemingway, his favorite. I discovered the hardboiled detective stories of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler on my own.
Toughness was always an ethos in my house. I don’t mean physical toughness necessarily, though that played a part. I’m talking about an attitude of mind: being tough, being cynical, unsentimental, sardonic, detached. That was the way a man was, a real man, or so we believed. A real man didn’t get taken in by sloppy romantic ideals like Honor or Sacrifice or Faith or Charity. He didn’t fall into line behind whatever hypocrite was mouthing rah-rah moral platitudes for the crowd. Group loyalty was for fools. School spirit? Patriotism? They were sucker games. If we identified as Jews, it was because we wouldn’t be pushed around by gentiles, not because we cared all that much about other Jews. If we stood by our family, it was because we knew no one else could be counted on. But we also knew that our family—that all families—were snakepits of envy and hostility. In the end, let’s face it, pal, you lived and died alone.
This attitude originated with my father. It was his personality translated into a worldview.
For twenty-five years, my father was one of the most popular radio entertainers on the air. He was never a national star, but his top-rated show was on during “morning drive,” the most important time slot, in New York City, the biggest market there was. Even aside from his talent and success, there was much to admire about the man. He was honest in business. He had integrity in his art. He was decent and fair to the people who worked with him. Most importantly from my perspective, he was always kind and loving and respectful toward my mother.
But he was a comedian, and not just by profession but by nature too. And like every comedian I’ve ever met, he was angry at his core. His sharp, biting, antic wit bubbled up from an inner cauldron of seething rage. The world was unfair, a conspiracy of big guys against the little guy, namely him. His comedy was a camouflaged hand grenade. Just kidding: kaboom! Intellectual sabotage against the machinery of life.
He had a chip on his shoulder, in other words. A whole stack of chips. About being a Jew in a Gentile universe, about the fact he never finished college, about the fact that serious people
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