Frank Herbert
Frank Patrick Herbert Jr was born on October 8, 1920, in Tacoma, Washington. His paternal grandparents had come west to live as part of a utopian community called Burley Colony. It was one of the many experimental communities that had sprung up across the United States in the late 1800s and started out championing ideas like gender equality and some socialist ideas (A note: utopian socialism, as opposed to scientific socialism, does not work and intentional communities like this tend to either revert to the capitalist commodity form of social production, or they collapse into toxicity.). For example, everyone was issued an equal salary, mostly in script printed by the Burley Colony. By the time of Frank's birth, much of the socialist element had been abandoned. His grandparents ran a general store for the community while his father pursued a variety of jobs to earn money for the family, among them running a speakeasy in the 1930s (Likely contributing to what happens later…{spoilers!}). Mr. Herbert's father was agnostic but his Mother and Aunts were devoted Catholic and they insisted that Frank be educated in a Jesuit school.
Mr. Herbert was an intelligent child and declared at the age of eight that he was going to be a writer. He was often noted as carrying a boy scout's bookbag full of books of a wide variety of subjects and the other kids at school often deferred to his knowledge. According to Mr. Herbert, much of his childhood outside of school was full of camping, fishing, and digging for clams. Unfortunately, his teen years were also filled with having to care for his little sister Patty Lou who was born when he was 13. At this point, his parents had turned to binge drinking. I can't help but think this impacted his schooling, as his high school career is noted as “checkered” with several failed classes. I gotta point out that if he's caring for an infant at home and likely as not dodging drunk parents, it's no wonder that his classwork was faltering (Folks, don’t do this to your kids. {I almost feel like binge drinking is worse than normal drinking because it’s inconsistent, which means your kids don’t have a normal to work around. They have days where you’re a good parent and trustworthy and then there are days when you’re a drunken mess and there’s no telling what you’re gonna be on any given day.}).
Mr. Herbert threw himself into journalist work, first working for the school paper and then dropping out of high school in his senior year to work for the Tacoma Ledger for about 4 or 5 months. He did return and graduate later that year and even sold his first story, a Western that netted him $27.50 (Which is $539.45 in today’s money, factor in purchasing power, and that ain’t bad.). He also wrote two dozen stories that were flatly rejected. He used the money to bundle up the now 5-year-old Patty Lou and buy bus tickets to flee to an Aunt and Uncle's place (Good kid. But for the love of God, people, don’t do this to your kids.). From what I can tell, he didn't regard his parents as capable of caring for her and couldn't bear to stay any longer. Patty Lou seems to have been raised by that Aunt and Uncle from that point because she fades out of the narrative of Mr. Herbert's life. As for Mr. Herbert, having seen to his little sister's safety, he promptly headed south to California to seek his own path.
He was highly mobile in 1939 and 1940 working for both the Glendale Star and Oregon Statesmen in a variety of positions. It's during this time he met his first wife, Flora Parkinson, information about her is somewhat sparse but they were married in the spring of 1941, in Tacoma by a Night Judge. In February of 1942, his first child and only daughter Penelope was born, in July he was drafted into the Navy and served as a photographer stationed in Virginia. Flora elected to stay in California with her family. Mr. Herber would serve for six months until a head injury from an accident resulted in him getting discharged in 1943. He headed back to California only to find Flora had disappeared and taken their daughter with her and her family refused to tell him anything about where she was or why. They divorced with Flora being awarded custody of their daughter (Dear God, that sucks.{My frustration is a complete lack of anything on her reasoning or motivations so I’m gonna avoid commenting on what to me looks like a case of parental kidnapping}).
For the rest of World War II, Mr. Herbert worked in Portland for the Oregon Journal. In 1945 he found a job working for the night desk of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and sold his second story to Espire for $200. He spent his days attending the University of Washington on the GI Bill. He wouldn't last long because he refused to do things like announcing a major or attend introductory classes wanting to only study classes that immediately interested him (Oops, that isn’t a good idea. {Mr. Herbert did seem to have a problem with doing anything step by step or following rules}). It was in a creative writing class that he met his wife of 37 years and the mother of both of his sons, Beverley Stuart Forbes. Both of them were the only ones in the class who had sold fiction, as Beverley sold a romance story and had her own literary dreams. Mr. Herbert dropped out of college and married Beverley in 1946, their first son Brian, was born in 1947. Beverley would be a major factor in Frank's success, not only as a sounding board but she provided feedback and often pushed Frank to write more realistic female characters. Mr. Herbert flat out said that Lady Jessica was in many ways modeled on his wife, as an intelligent, driven woman (This is something I struggle with in my own writing, it’s a perspective I lack. Which isn’t to say I don’t try, because I do. But it’s hard. So good on him for putting in the effort!).
While Mr. Herbert was always able to find newspaper work, financial difficulties haunted the couple. An attempt to build a house collapsed and the bank repossessed the half-built structure. Meanwhile, Mr. Herbert's first wife reappeared demanding child support (She sounds like a lovely person. Granted the kid deserves support, but Jesus Christ.). In 1949 while working for the Santa Rosa Press Democrat they became close friends with Irene and Ralph Slatternly, who were both Jungian psychologists. It's here that Mr. Herbert developed an interest in ESP, genetic memory, and the idea of a collective unconsciousness. These are ideas that would show up constantly in his work (God, do they!). Mr. Herbert also met Alan Watts, who introduced him to Zen Buddhism. Mr. Herbert also began growing out his beard as his second son Bruce was born in 1951. In 1952, he sold his first science fiction story and creditors began to haunt his steps again. So when his friend and mentor, science fiction Legend Jack Vance invited Mr. Herbert to bring the family on an extended vacation to Mexico, it seemed like a good idea (I mean, fuck creditors! Fucking parasites! {On the flip side Herbert had borrowed money and promised to pay it back}).
It's in Mexico that Mr. Herbert first experimented with things such as hashish cookies and morning glory tea (Oh My! {He says the first time was an accident}). In 1954, Mr. Herbert was hired as a speechwriter for Senator Guy Cordon. This led to him spending time in Washington D.C and learning about the federal government. He even meet Senator Joe McCarthy at a party and had a front seat to the red panic (What is really funny to me is that there actually were communist spies all over the US, but the US was too incompetent to catch them, in the main. Instead, it persecuted people who were either not communists, or who were openly communists and thus not useful as spies. Meanwhile, during this period, the Cambridge Five were operating in the UK.). This would directly help inspire his first novel, set on a US sub in the future stealing oil from nations that they were locked into a war with. The story focused more on the paranoia of the crew as they realize one of them is likely a spy. It was praised as a great examination of closed societies. This book also marks where he started the process of dealing with writer's block by taking psychoactive drugs, in this case, peyote. He wrote it first as a serial series that he sold to Astonishing Science Fiction Magazine under the title Under Pressure and later rewrote it as the novel Dragon of the Sea, selling it to Doubleday. It was here that Barbara decided to abandon her own writing attempts in the mystery genre and got a day job to support the family writing fundraising copy for Tacoma's Mary Bridge Children's Hospital.
According to Brian Herbert, Frank Herbert was at best a flawed father figure (He was a shitty father. More on that later.). Mr. Herbert believed in corporal punishment (Which is child abuse.{Sure, but it was common to the point of being culturally expected. On this one point, I’m not going to condemn him for doing what his culture told him was good parenting. It’s not like he had great role models growing up}) and often subjected his sons to sessions with a lie detector (Wtf? {There are parents who pay to have that done to their kids today, it's still fucked up though}). He was also manic in preserving his isolation during writing time, even going so far as to lock the boys out of the house if their mother wasn't home (Yeah, um… that is really shitty parenting. And suddenly, Brian not giving a shit about his father’s artistic vision for the Dune universe makes more sense. {Then Brian should have written his own damn universe. This also wasn’t uncommon. I’m not saying it's okay but when everyone you trust tells you that this is what you should do...}). I'm not going to defend this behavior as today it would result in your kids being taken away from you and frankly, that may be to their benefit if you're treating them that way. My issues with the American foster system aside. I will note that bluntly from what I've seen and found that Mr. Herbert parenting wouldn't have stood out that much in the 1960s as corporal punishment was fairly common even decades later and even today parents are often eager to do things like stick their kids in a lie detector which seems overboard to me at best, and massively invasive and an abuse of authority at worse.
While Dragon of the Sea sold well enough, the couple didn't use any of the money to settle their debts. So when the IRS came knocking they took another trip to Mexico so Frank could try to write a second novel, this didn't work. So in 1956, Mr. Herbert took another day job working for a Republican candidate who lost his race, but he learned about a project being done by the Department of Agriculture up in Florence Oregon. Where they were using poverty grasses like European Sea Grass to anchor the dunes. That had started engulfing entire towns and highways in sand at this point. Enthralled, Frank headed up to take a look. He started a magazine article he never finished and at some point became inspired to write a novel. To support his research efforts while Beverley was working as an ad copywriter, he would work for another Congressional candidate who lost the election 70 to 30%. (It seems his politics were as shitty as his parenting. We’ll get there, I promise.)
At this point, Beverley was the main breadwinner of the family and when she was offered a job in San Francisco as an advertising manager, the family moved there and Mr. Herbert got a job with a local paper. At this point, Mr. Herbert was able to win custody of his daughter and was able to socialize with local science fiction writers. It was also here that he finally finished the novel that would cement him into history; he released Dune first as a serial series and then rewrote it as a novel and began shopping it around. It was rejected 23 times, with editors largely liking the work but believing it would never sell. One rejection letter even read “I feel I'm making a mistake but...”
Dune becoming successful, especially after Ace Books bought the paperback, started a whole new chapter in Mr. Herbert's life. One that largely resolved his financial problems. His daughter Penelope married and moved out, and so did his oldest son Brian. Apollo Astronauts named a crater on the moon Dune in his honor and the sequels were well received. This is also where Mr. Herbert's relationship with his youngest son began to break down. By 1969 when Dune Messiah was published
Bruce and Frank Herbert grew estranged over the fact that Bruce Herbert was openly gay (Good for Bruce!). Bruce Herbert not only was openly gay but deeply involved in queer theater in San Francisco and became an activist for gay rights. Although Mr. Herbert never formally disowned his son, he would openly state repeatedly that he believed that Bruce was making a choice to be gay and that was unwelcome in his home. I'm not going to defend this behavior, while I try to be neutral when writing about authors, this was flat-out bigoted behavior. Sadly from everything, I could find Mr. Herbert never grew out of it and would even try to talk Bruce out of visiting his mother when she was dying, which is honestly disgusting behavior but we'll get there. (I have absolutely no such qualms about neutrality. {I don’t think I’m being neutral when I call the man a bigot} Fuck Frank Herbert. I don’t ‘judge people by the times they live in’ as a means of excusing this sort of shit, unless it was literally the sort of thing that was an outside context problem at the time. Stonewall had happened. His son was gay and fighting for his rights as a human being. It was Frank’s duty as a person and as a parent to stand up for his son, and of all his miserable failures as a parent, in this, he manifestly failed. He is a contemptible man, and human being, no matter what we might say about the quality of his writing. That he tried to restrict Bruce’s contact with his dying mother only cements this.).
The 1970s were something of a heyday for the Herberts. They were able to buy a home which they set about making it as environmentally sustainable as possible with 1970s technology. This included a chicken house heated via methane from the birds dropping and a solar heated pool. Mr. Herbert started teaching courses on writing dystopian and utopian fiction at the University of Washington and wrote a number of non-Dune novels. He also emerged as an early champion of environmentalism and ecological thinking. Often arguing that humanity needed to curb its addiction to fossil fuels. In the 1970s! Basically, he was calling for renewables and other actions before it was cool. In 1976 Children of Dune was a break-out hit, Mr. Herbert toured 21 cities in 31 days on a book tour and then the book Dune was optioned for a movie. The beginning of the end came in 1980 when Beverley was diagnosed with lung cancer. They moved to Hawaii because they were told the warmer climate would help her. This was funded in part by money from Hollywood. Mr. Herbert was hired as a consultant for the attempts to film his book and in part by the wild success of God Emperor of Dune. As a result, Mr. Herbert was handed what was at the time a massive advance on a 5th book.
Mr. Herbert would split his time mostly between writing books and caring for his wife, becoming in effect her primary nurse. While he welcomed his eldest son and his daughter, he attempted to talk his son Bruce out of coming. He would never apologize or mend his relationship with Bruce (Fuck him, right in the ear.). She passed away in 1984. Frank would believe until his dying day that she would speak to him in his dreams. This became a major factor in his third and final marriage to the much younger Theresa Shackleford, who was a literary agent for Putnam books. Her job was mainly to take care of authors visiting Los Angles for book signings, it was on the job that she met Mr. Herbert in 1985, who would say later that when he was leaving L.A, Beverley appeared to him and told him to marry Theresa. They were married in 1985. Theresa would say later that Mr. Herbert was the most brilliant man she ever knew and despite that, he never made her feel stupid or inept but would always listen to her and was wonderful to talk to. Mr. Herbert would pass away in 1986 from pulmonary embolism. He had just finished Chapterhouse Dune, the title having been chosen by Beverley before she passed away.
Bruce Herbert continued his activism and worked in electronics, however, he contracted AIDS and passed away in 1993, his brother Brian was there with him (Good, he was better than most. A lot of AIDS patients - gay or not - died without their families, given comfort only by their fellow LGBTQ people, many of whom were also dying. Their governments literally laughed at them and used AIDS to kill millions in a genocide by neglect.) Brian continued his father's work as he was offered 3 million dollars to keep writing with Kevin J Anderson and finish the Dune series. Much like Philip K Dick, the best I can say is Frank Herbert is a deeply flawed man who rose from flawed beginnings. I suppose Mr. Herbert would point out this is one reason why you should beware of idolizing anyone too much and placing too much trust in the idea of heroic or charismatic leaders. Because just like him, they're at best human beings and therefore made up of good and bad. That doesn't excuse his flaws but it also doesn't bury his virtues. I leave it to you my readers to make your final judgments.
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