In Which I Finally Begin to Read JESUS II, a Work of Fiction That Mentions My Hometown

Well, I KIND OF begin to read it ...

To recap from Part One: As my case of COVID (mild) winds down, I’m beginning to actually read a book I found when I was about 12 years-old in my hometown public library. The book got my attention because Wausau, St. Michael’s, and Father Krasowski — all fixtures of my youth — are mentioned inside.

Well, I tried to read it. I got sidetracked.

A bit of research revealed that author “Frank Riley” is a pseudonym for Frank Wilbert Rhylick, who was, like me, a Wausau, Wisconsin native. Rhylick was a syndicated travel columnist and editor for the Los Angeles Times, and editor of the Los Angeles Magazine. He evidently also wrote advertisements for See’s Candies, some screenplays, short fiction (i.e. the “Father Anton Dymek” mysteries), and was host of a radio program in the Los Angeles area.

So, why weren’t the nuns at St. Mike’s holding up this guy as an example for students like me, who were obviously not going to make a career in algebra?

It turns out Rhylick is also a bit infamous for sharing with Mark Clifton a Hugo Award for They’d Rather Be Right, a novel published in 1955 (then re-titled The Forever Machine, the original title of the Astounding serial when published as a Galaxy SF Novel in 1959).

The Fix Was In

A bit of a deep dive reveals that there are few fans of They’d Rather Be Right, a novel that is generally accepted as the worst to have won a Hugo award.

In a recap of an online debate collected in Sense of Wonder Stories in 2011, Jim Linwood posited a theory based on the religious leanings of the now-infamous editor of Astounding Science Fiction, John W. Campbell:

“THEY'D RATHER BE RIGHT was basically catering for Campbell's flirtation with Scientology and I’d always assumed that it won a Hugo by virtue of ballot stuffing by Scientologists. This is just my theory and I’ve never read anything to back it up.”

Consider the other books that were eligible that year and overlooked: Issac Asimov’s Caves of Steel, I am Legend by Richard Matheson, Brain Wave and The Broken Sword by Poul Anderson — and the first two books of a famous trilogy I need not name by J. R. R. Tolkien.

It wouldn’t be the only time the sci-fi community had to deal with the proclivities of Campbell. In 2019, an award named after Campbell was renamed when that year’s winner, Jeannette Ng, objected to use of his name of the award.

From The New York Times:

On Tuesday, Analog Science Fiction and Fact said it was changing the prize’s name from the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer to the Astounding Award for Best New Writer. In a blog post explaining the decision, the magazine’s editor, Trevor Quachri, wrote: “Campbell’s provocative editorials and opinions on race, slavery, and other matters often reflected positions that went beyond just the mores of his time and are today at odds with modern values, including those held by the award’s many nominees, winners and supporters.”

The New York Times further reported:

He also wrote in support of segregation, called slavery “a useful educational system” and claimed black writers did not or could not “write in open competition,” in addition to making derogatory comments about women and homosexuality. In a 1998 essay, “Racism and Science Fiction,” the award-winning author Samuel R. Delany recalled Campbell rejecting a submission of his, saying the editor “didn’t feel his readership would be able to relate to a black main character.”

So, not a good name to put on a literary trophy, to say the very least. Another unflattering anecdote by J.L. Worrad in his blog:

Alfred Bester, a sci-fi author who was never nostalgic about Campbell, once recounted a tale to Tangent Magazine of he and Campbell’s first meeting in Campbell’s office regarding a story sale. Things get increasingly absurd. The whole interview can be found in the Winter issue of Tangent, 1977.

“Anyway, we sit down and talk (and I’ve got a sense of humor, and that’s why I could never get along with him).

Anyway, Campbell said to me out of the clear blue sky, “Of course you don’t know it, you have no way of knowing it yet, but psychiatry–psychiatry as we know it–is dead.”

And I said, “Oh, Mr. Campbell, surely you’re joking.”

And he said, “Psychiatry as we know it is finished.”

And I said, “If you mean the various Freudian schools and the quarreling that’s going on between them…”

He looked at me and said, “No, what I mean is that psychiatry is finished. L. Ron Hubbard has ended psychiatry.”

I said, “Really?”

“Ron is going to win the Nobel Peace Prize.”

Yes, I’ve put in my order for Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction.

Brass Tacks

Despite being sidetracked into the above intrigue, I did indeed make some progress into Jesus II, and, look, I gotta be honest - it’s drudgery thus far.

First of all, the narrative seems, at first, to be composed in common third person, kicking off with a phone conversation between Father Cagliari (not Caligari) and Father Anton Dymek (he of the “A Father Anton Dymek Intrigue” subtitle, and possessor of a “large Polack nose”) — until we are suddenly confronted with first person narrative:

I’d phoned earlier to invite him to lunch to celebrate the apparent ending of the grand jury investigation into the matter of treating the water of Los Angeles with ORF-X, the Kocska anti-orgasm formula.

Two things: I’m three chapters in, and I still do not know who “I” is and how he/she is able to convey narrative for which he/she is not present; and, the Kocska anti-orgasm formula?!!?

I have a long slog ahead of me …