While researching Twin Peaks – Fire Walk With Me, I caught a scene where Laura Palmer walks through the hallway at Twin Peaks High School. She’s on her way to meet Bobby Briggs and holding a paperback novel in her hand. Which novel is she carrying?
As she walks toward the camera, the book cover becomes more clear. She’s holding “The Human Comedy” by William Saroyan. At first, I thought it was the book of a similar title by Balzac. A quick internet search revealed a matching cover.
The book was originally published on February 4, 1943. Dell paperbacks released a revised mass market paperback novel in 1966. The revised edition is credited to William Saroyan, with several substantial edits that reduce the story to 192 pages.
The Penguin Random House website describes the book as:
“The place is Ithaca, in California’s San Joaquin Valley. The time is World War II. The family is the Macauley’s—a mother, sister, and three brothers whose struggles and dreams reflect those of America’s second-generation immigrants…In particular, fourteen-year-old Homer, determined to become one of the fastest telegraph messengers in the West, finds himself caught between reality and illusion as delivering his messages of wartime death, love, and money brings him face-to-face with human emotion at its most naked and raw.
Gentle, poignant and richly autobiographical, this delightful novel shows us the boy becoming the man in a world that even in the midst of war, appears sweeter, safer and more livable than out own.”
There were two film adaptations of this book – one in 1943 staring Mickey Rooney, and one in 2015 titled “Ithaca ” and directed by Meg Ryan.
