“We are the October People, the autumn folk. That is the truth in an almond husk, a nightweed shell.”
- Title: From the Dust Returned
- Author: Ray Bradbury
- Genre: Horror/Fantasy
- Year: 2001
From the Dust Returned is another trip with Ray Bradbury into October Country, this time located roughly in upper Illinois. It is a fix-up novel in the vein of The Martian Chronicles, collecting short stories from several previous Bradbury anthologies — most prominently The October Country — and weaving them together with new material into an episodic but thematically coherent novel that tells the story of one very unusual family.
It is a story that Bradbury says he has been revisiting for decades (from 1945 to 2000), without ever really realizing it. Fans will recognize many of the stories and characters here — from Cecy the irrepressible rider of souls to the winged Uncle Einar. From the Dust Returned takes these old friends and finally meshes all their stories together into one narrative history of the Elliott family — a many-generationed clan with their origins in ancient Egypt. The Elliotts are, for lack of a better term, creatures of the night.
From the Dust Returned is essentially an extended riff on ‘Homecoming’ and the shorts related to it such as ‘Uncle Einar’ (both in The October Country) and ‘West of October’ (in The Toynbee Convector). If you liked those stories, and ‘Homecoming’ in particular, you will like this book, which magnifies the idea of the reunion of this otherworldly family and gives us a brief look at their last days — for the Elliotts are coming into conflict with the modern world, a world that no longer believes in the things that go bump in the night.
What is new in From the Dust Returned is both rewritten and expanded sections for each story (for example this version of ‘Uncle Einar’ has him purposefully seeking a wife, rather than accidentally happening upon one) as well as additional vignettes and shorts that round out the whole family and tell of their ultimate fate. Timothy, the normal lad who is the central character of ‘Homecoming’ and has had trouble adjusting to life with a family of immortal — and possibly vampiric — eccentrics, occupies the role of family historian, and is our anchor amidst this strange family of shape changers, Egyptian mummies, ghosts, and coffin-sleepers.
Bradbury’s light touch is still there, and this strange family is ever more human than it is monstrous, and the qualities that ensured ‘Homecoming’ was rejected from Weird Tales in the forties are the guiding principles of this novel of 2001– namely, this is a story about human relationships, family, and the passage of time, not ghouls and goblins. Thus we have a tale in which four randy and adventurous young men have their souls trapped in the body of their ancient grandfather, only to find his lifetime’s memories are adventure enough to satisfy their every craving; a story in which a sick passenger on the Orient Express is discovered to be suffering from an ailment of the modern world, for his kind is not longer believed in; and another of a man who feels trapped by his family only to find in them the source of his own redemption. As always, Bradbury’s stories are human stories, and From the Dust Returned features some of his most lyrical invocations and elegiac imagery to create the sort of dark fantastic fiction that prizes the somber and the beautiful over the shrill and shocking.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
God if I could only write half as good as Ray Bradbury. I love reading his stories. When I saw this posting in your archives I just had to come over. Nice review. October Country is one of the collections I own of his and read over and over.
Steve
I know what you mean, Steve — he’s one of the best inside or outside the genre. And very rereadable.
{ 1 trackback }