Futures Past: "It's A Good Life" classic sci fi/ horror/ fantasy story

 As I write this, it’s the middle of the week, and I’ve been wavering between a number of different ideas what to do. I finally decided it was time to do something different, which was when I remembered I already had this, a post I hadn’t finished. I have recently been on a Twilight Zone binge, which ultimately included a review of the 1980s movie. Another resulting tangent was a reread of the story that was the basis for one of the most famous TZ episodes of all, “It’s A Good Life” by Jerome Bixby, the tale of a town held hostage by one Anthony Freeman, a child with the powers of a god. To accompany my review, I posted a few thoughts on the story in a newsgroup. With this post, I’m expanding this into a true essay.

The main thing I decided was worth writing about further is my personal experience with both the episode and the story. I saw the episode at a very early date, possibly about as soon as I had access to a TV. As I commented in the review of the movie, at that time, Twilight Zone still had a huge footprint. It aired regularly on weekend and daytime TV, plus the “marathons” that usually cropped up once or twice a year. There was also plenty of associated media, which would soon include parodies on the Simpsons Treehouse of Horror, not to mention the 1980s revival. Of course, the episode made a strong impression on me. That still leads to one of my specific memories of the franchise: At age 10 or 11, I recounted the episode to an older family friend who said he hadn’t watched the show. When I described the ending, he said he could picture it all.

It was a while later that I read the story, in hindsight after I must have read several other stories by the author. I probably first ran across it in the Science Fiction Hall Of Fame, which I believe may have been the only time I read it before my recent reread. It did stay in my mind as it continued to turn up in other anthologies I read or collected, including a collection from Frederick Pohl’s Star anthology series where the story first appeared. More recently, it has apparently slipped into public domain, leading to a number of postings of the full texts as well as a variety of readings and adaptations. Then and now, it fit my impressions of the writer before and since: Competent, polished, and creatively subversive, yet ultimately, deceptively unremarkable. My further and strongest impression was that the story is a very different and far more unsettling experience than the TV episode, even though the adaptation is among the most faithful on record.

Coming to the story, what can easily derail any further analysis is how to classify this very odd beast. It’s really science fiction only in the sense that it was first appeared in a genre publication, and then in an anthology format that offered far greater flexibility. “Dark fantasy” would be a better fit, yet still imperfect. The most obvious answer is to call it supernatural horror, notably at a historical low point when Weird Tales was a few years from extinction and only comics like Tales From The Crypt were moving in to replace it (one more important datum on how this ended up in an SF publication). To me, the best fit is “regional” fiction, especially in terms of the polished “mainstream” realism that is prominent both here and in the whole of the author’s body of work. (“Our Town”, which has turned up on public-domain sites, is if possible an even more horrific case in point.) What’s striking is that the story becomes even more jarring and perverse considered in these terms. In place of amiable stereotypes and idealized everymen, we have people who by all indications were in miserable poverty even before the actual demigod showed up. I find myself wondering if the author’s whole career amounted to jumping the fence of a field that had become even more hidebound and moralizing than science fiction had been in the 1930s.

Finally coming to the story itself, my first and central observation is that the scenario is so brutal that the only conclusion to be made is that these people are simply doomed. In the story, Anthony is only three, and has possessed his powers literally from birth. There are already fewer than 50 people left alive in the town, including less than 20 children. While no corresponding figure is given for the population pre-Anthony, the number of referenced and implied deaths (one from apparently natural causes) is surely in the double digits and very possibly in the hundreds. Thus, the few survivors who remain are most likely less than half the original population, and it will become clear that those who remain have not gotten any better at staying alive. On top of that, it seems very possible that Anthony may actually grow more powerful with age.

Meanwhile, what may prove especially jarring in comparison to the TZ treatment is that Anthony is treated quite sympathetically. Much of the story is for all intents and purposes from his point of view, and in his perceptions, the world of the story is one of wonder and ethereal beauty. It is especially intriguing to see an idyllic pond he has created for the town’s wildlife. Of course, even here, there are punishments meted out and a casualty from simple absentmindedness. This ultimately provides key context for the greatest horror of the tale: Anthony really wants to be a benefactor to the townspeople as he is to the animals, in exchange for the same simple-minded gratitude. The actual result is that his attempts to “help” terrify the townspeople even more than his sometimes justified outbursts of anger. This is illustrated early on by an ominously vague account of Anthony bringing a grieving widow’s husband back to life.

A fair amount has already been said about strong insinuations that Anthony isn't fully human in appearance, which culminate in a brief and grisly recounting of his birth. It's made explicit in the process that he has had his powers from birth. What I found most jarring, especially compared to the show and the movie, is that he only speaks once in the entire story, and then literally 2 words. This actually fits with his age as given in the story, with the surely intended implication that he could actually grow more powerful with time. One more especially striking difference from the TV and movie adaptations is that Anthony is actively sadistic rather than merely disproportionate in retaliation, notably compelling a rat to "eat itself" in the first scene. This gives a whole new element of horror, but to me, it actually makes the story feel significantly more routine. Unromanticized depictions of childhood were fairly common in and outside science fiction in the 1950s, which makes this story simply part of a trend. (However, it’s noteworthy that it was published a little before Golding’s Lord of the Flies.) What I found odd is that nothing more is made of this in the story as a whole, which ultimately makes a missed opportunity to challenge perceptions of “normal” behavior.

Something else I felt worth discussing are two characters in both the story and the episode, Aunt Amy and Dan Hollis. Amy is described at the outset as the victim of Anthony’s outbursts, which left her alive yet all but destroyed mentally. What becomes quite disconcerting is that she actually acts more “normal” than anyone else, and even gets away with complaining far more than anyone else. As a further nuance, it’s mentioned that Anthony might restore her to her former self once he better understands his actions, which of course only brings up still more horrifying possibilities. By further comparison, Hollis as the single human victim whose fate is shown in the story is far more obnoxious and ignominiously dispatched. At the party in his honor, he gets drunk and genuinely acts like a jerk to everyone present. The most striking difference is that he doesn't even get the benefit of the defiant, arguably heroic speech to Anthony that made the episode’s searing ending. Instead, he doesn’t even realize Anthony is there until it is clearly too late, then barely gets off a word before he's transformed into an undescribed abomination.

The greatest horror of the story ultimately lies in its most striking point of ambiguity, whether Anthony can simply bring people back to life. It’s already up in the air whether Anthony has isolated the town from the world or destroyed everything else, a point that works far better in the printed story. The further and increasingly strong implication is that this is for all intents and purposes a world of Anthony’s creation, and there is ample reason to consider whether the people are likewise his warped handiwork. As noted, we find out early that Anthony has tried to bring one person back to life, however imperfectly. Therefore, it is certainly possible that those who have survived are alive by his whim. The limited, already terrifying scenario (mentioned by others but not stated to my satisfaction) is that there are people the child demigod will not allow to die. The maximized interpretation is that those who think they have been spared have really already been killed and resurrected an indefinite number of times, very possibly remade each time even more according to his warped perception. An extra detail that fits far too well is Anthony’s “television” night, which the story portrays as entirely incomprehensible sounds and images- not “real” TV, but perhaps a child’s perception and idea of TV.

In conclusion, what I find after going through this is that I am conflicted about both the Twilight Zone episode and the story. As good as it was an adaptation, I no longer consider the episode among the best of the series. (The one that’s really crept up for that distinction is “The Silence”, which isn’t even “real” sci fi or fantasy/ horror.) Viewing it as an adult, I find it takes the right mood to appreciate it as anything but overdone. The story has aged far better, but stands out far more as a product of its time and a writer who could never quite make it into the top ranks. One might further wish that there could be a “do over” of the TZ episode that wasn’t limited by either censorship or effects technology. (The descriptions of the "sky" and "sun" would be hard to do with anything but CGI.) However, we already had our shot with the movie, and the people involved made what was probably the best choice by taking a different path entirely. Ultimately, the verdict on the story even more than the episode is that its greatest accomplishment was laying the way for better things. By all means read it if you haven’t, and reread it if you have. Just remember, things could be worse.