limited cover trade cover

NESFA Press

Limited edition price: $75.00
Shipping:
free to US addresses;
$25/book to Canada addresses;
$35/book elsewhere

Trade HC price: $35.00
See online store for shipping costs

Buy the limited edition

Buy the trade HC

View basket

Limited edition:

Trade HC (Hardcover):

Limited Hardcover edition available as of April 2017
Trade HC (Hardcover) available as of July 2017
Paperback and ebook editions are planned for 2018

Edited by David G. Grubbs
Photo by Beth Gwinn

NESFA Press
PO Box 809
Framingham, MA 01701-0809
phone: 617-625-2311
email: sales@nesfa.org

An unguarded, uncensored, unquiet tour of the life of Harlan Ellison.

In late 2011 Harlan Ellison—the multi-award-winning writer of speculative fiction and famously litigious personality—did two uncharacteristic things. First, he asked biographer Nat Segaloff if he’d be interested in writing his life story. Second, he gave Segaloff full control. The result is the long-anticipated A Lit Fuse: The Provocative Life of Harlan Ellison. The expansive biography, which is the first such project in which Ellison has permitted large portions of his varied works to appear, is published by NESFA Press.

Segaloff conducted exhaustive interviews with Ellison over the course of five years and also spoke with many of his friends and enemies in an effort to get inside the man and pin down the best-known “Harlan stories.” Their wide-ranging discussions cover his bullied boyhood, his storied marriages, his fabled lawsuits, and his compulsive writing process with more depth and detail than has ever before appeared in print. But it also delves deeply into the man’s deeply held principles, his fears, and the demons that have driven him all of his 83 (so far) years. Friends, colleagues, and admirers such as Neil Gaiman, Patton Oswalt, Peter David, Robert Sawyer, Michael Scott, Edward Asner, Leonard Nimoy, Ed Bryant, Alan Brennert, Robert Silverberg, and many other notables add their voices.

Along the way the reader is treated to an analysis of the Connie Willis controversy, the infamous dead gopher story, allegedly pushing a fan down an elevator shaft, and the final word on The Last Dangerous Visions. What emerges is a rich portrait of a man who has spent his life doing battle with his times and himself, always challenging his readers to reach for a higher plane and goading himself to get them there. It’s funny, wise, shocking, and—well, it’s Harlan.

Table of Contents

Author

Nat Segaloff [Photo by Liane Brandon]

Nat Segaloff is a writer, producer, and film historian. He has written the biographies of Arthur Penn, William Friedkin, and Stirling Silliphant, and produced documentaries on Stan Lee, John Belushi, Larry King, and Shari Lewis & Lamb Chop. He is co-author of the play “The Waldorf Conference,” about the origins of the Hollywood Blacklist (in which Harlan Ellison acted) and, in addition to A Lit Fuse, has also completed a memoir, Screen Saver.

Information about the limited first edition (printing state)

Publishing information

Dealer and member discounts

Errata