{"product_id":"9781887368759","title":"Woman","description":"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAFTERWORD\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhen I am asked how I got the idea for any particular novel, I can (usually)   provide an answer.\u003cbr\u003eFor I Am Legend, it came while I was viewing Bela Lugosi's   Dracula. It occurred to me that if one vampire is scary, what if the whole world   was full of vampires?\u003c\/p\u003e  \u003cp\u003eFor The Shrinking Man, the idea came during another movie I was viewing. Many   of my ideas came from movies - most likely not very good movies. A good movie   does not create ideas since I am totally involved in it. A poor movie, on the   other hand, might have some small element which brings on my imagination. So it   was with this film. In a brief moment, which had nothing to do with the overall   story Ray Milland unwittingly dons Aldo Ray's hat. His head being smaller than   Ray's, the hat comes down over his ears. What, it came to me, would Ray Milland   think if it was his own hat which now was too big for his head? Thus the genesis   of a story about a man who discovers that he is shrinking.\u003c\/p\u003e  \u003cp\u003eFor Hell House the notion arose as a result of many years of reading about   haunted houses topped by a reading of Shirley Jackson's novel about Hill House.   She never (in my memory) indicated the presence of an actual ghost. At least she   never described one. The ghosts she had in mind were more than likely created by   the psyche of one of the two women who came to the house. They were   psychological ghosts brought on-or released-by the dark atmosphere of the   house.\u003c\/p\u003e  \u003cp\u003eI didn't choose to go that route. I wanted my house to contain tangible   ghosts. While the atmosphere of Hell House certainly has an effect on the minds   of its quartet of invaders, visible, audible ghosts exist as well.\u003c\/p\u003e  \u003cp\u003eAnd for A Stir of Echoes recollections of a tract house my wife and I-and our   two (then) children lived in-plus a desire (motivated by a beginning dislike of   the \"genre\" concept) to combine a ghost story with a murder mystery brought on   that novel.\u003c\/p\u003e  \u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor Woman . . . nothing. No memory whatsoever of its creative   birth.\u003cbr\u003eIt seems most peculiar to me that such a (I hope) provocative concept   came to me and left no trace of its genesis.\u003c\/p\u003e  \u003cp\u003eMy wife has suggested that a three-year period during which I was writing a   six-hour television adaptation of Philip Wylie's The Disappearance brought on   the notion.\u003c\/p\u003e  \u003cp\u003eIn Wylie's story, half of the disappearance results in a world populated   exclusively by women, with the logical results of that condition. As I recall,   the world, struggling back from technological limitations, does become a   workable, more humane society-while the other half of the world, exclusively   men, goes (rather rapidly) all to hell. As it probably would.\u003c\/p\u003e  \u003cp\u003eIt certainly seems a reasonable idea that this adaptation (never filmed, I   add regretfully; another unrealized dream) engendered the germ of an idea which   ultimately became Woman, first a play (as yet unstaged), then the novel which   you just (I assume) read.\u003c\/p\u003e  \u003cp\u003eI don't remember it happening that way, however. Even more strangely, I don't   \u003cbr\u003erecall research reading on the subject although, obviously, I did, quoting a   number of sources in the novel.\u003cbr\u003e So, how did it happen? Did I channel   some otherworldly manuscript? Did I contact Philip Wylie while I was   sleeping?\u003cbr\u003e I doubt any of that. It's my concept, my story. Still, that a   concept so specific, a concept rather unique (I think) should not be clearly   deposited in my memory bank remains perplexing to me.\u003cbr\u003e However, I   imagine that any number of story and novel ideas I've come up with in the past   60-plus years have no source remembrance in my mind.\u003cbr\u003e With regard to   Woman, though, I have for many years certainly subscribed to its   concept.\u003cbr\u003e That the so-termed female revolution (feminism) has resulted   in many major alternations in society-alterations positive to the world--goes (I   hope) without saying. Women in business, women in politics, women in education,   women in religion, women in all areas of society itself. \u003cbr\u003e But is it   enough? Has Nature (Mother Nature I feel compelled to add) come to the ultimate,   albeit reluctant conclusion that revolution is not enough? That evolution must   now perforce be activated in order to conclude Man's unending destruction of the   world and all living things on its surface? \u003cbr\u003eWhat more is there to   say? Could be.\u003cbr\u003e       \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gauntlet, Incorporated CO","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47057926717680,"sku":"9781887368759","price":12.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781887368759_p0.jpg?v=1763606664","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781887368759","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}