A Lit Fuse: The Provocative Life of Harlan Ellison

A Lit Fuse is 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.

A Lit Fuse contains a 32-page color photo section.

Nat Segaloff has known Harlan Ellison for 20 years and, for decades before meeting him, enjoyed reading his work. Their first close encounter was when he interviewed Ellison for his A&E Biography on Stan Lee. After that, Ellison appeared as an actor in The Waldorf Conference, a play Segaloff co-wrote about the origins of the Hollywood Blacklist.

Segaloff's other books include biographies of directors Arthur Penn and William Friedkin, screenwriter Stirling Silliphant, and Final Cuts: The Last Films of 50 Great Directors. He was also a founding partner, with John de Lancie and Leonard Nimoy, of the science fiction production company Alien Voices. He lives in Los Angeles ducking phone calls.