The Astronaut: remembering a forgotten novel
Years ago I read The Astronaut by James Blumgarten, the story of a TV journalist searching for the truth about an astronaut who never returned from space. The novel has been on my mind ever since.
The Ambition
There’s a hashtag percolating around Bluesky: “Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers.”
Of course I was in on this bibliophile social media silliness. One cover immediately came to mind. The Astronaut by James Blumgarten, published in 1974 by Warner Books. It’s a slim work, about 175 pages, with vivid cover art by Jim Spanfeller, a respected illustrator from the 1960s-1970s.
I won’t be shocked if you’ve never heard of The Astronaut. Few people have. I first picked it up when I was about 15 or so. I mean that in the literal sense. My local library had a paperback exchange rack. Bring a paperback, take a paperback. I confess that I took many books but rarely—if ever—provided one in return.
I was also in my nascent days as a cinemaphile. Not movie fan. Cinemaphile. My early-teen affectations are laughable now, but when you’re a high school freshman who’s just discovered 2001: A Space Odyssey and Bonnie and Clyde, pretentiousness is sacred.1 My life’s goal was to be a Great Film Director. I was going to out-Kubrick Stanley Kubrick, out-Penn Arthur Penn. Only one thing got in my way. It turned out I have no talent for filmmaking. As a creative person I’ve mastered the writer’s full stop but never got the hang of a filmmaker’s f-stop. Still, at 15, a boy can dream, can’t he?
Before becoming a Great Film Director, I first had to write the Great American Screenplay. My output was dismal. In retrospect, what emerged from my typewriter read less like genius and more like scripts for The Three Stooges of the Curly Joe DeRita era. And mind you, I don’t care for The Three Stooges at all. I never understood why people thought they were funny. I still don’t.2
I gave up my DeRitaesque narratives. Instead, I set my sights on the writing The Great American Adapted Screenplay. If only I could find a catalyst for my inevitable brilliant opus.
The Muse
As you can probably deduce, I found my inspiration at the public library’s paperback exchange rack, looking for a new book to steal to inspire my once-and-future “based on” muse.
There it was. The Astronaut by James Blumgarten. Never heard of either the novel nor the author, but it sure looked interesting. Between my ongoing romance for 2001: A Space Odyssey and my general Apollo moon landing fanboy geekiness, the title had instant appeal. I grabbed The Astronaut, stuffed it into my backpack, then went to a hidden corner of the library where I could read without any distractions. My version of nirvana.
I was hooked by page 2. The Astronaut was a book worthy of my gifts. It had everything I dreamed of: engrossing plot, riveting characters, psychological complexity, a mystery tinged with existential angst for our modern times. All phrases I didn’t understand, even though I employed them with ease. Also, sex scenes. In early-to-mid adolescence, sex scenes always make for great literature.
Here’s a quick summary of The Astronaut. On the eve of the Apollo 11 moon shot, Franklin Weiss, a TV news journalist, is assigned to develop a retrospective piece on Tom Beckwith, a Mercury astronaut whose capsule burned up during its return to Earth. Six years later, the catastrophe is still shrouded in secrecy by tight-lipped NASA officials. Weiss wrestles with personal demons throughout the first-person narrative. His marriage is falling apart. He is filled with contempt for himself, a pitiful newsman in comparison to the idealistic image of the space age hero. As Weiss, he gets deeper into his research, he discovers that the NASA veneer is far from reality. He interviews Beckwith’s old friends. He meets and beds the man’s widow. She provides Weiss with a secret tape Beckwith gave her before his mission. The recording shocks the hardened newsman. When he connects with a former NASA radio transmitter, Weiss confirms his gut-wrenching understanding of the Tom Beckwith mystery: Beckwith wasn’t lost in space, so much as he was lost within himself.
I read and reread and reread The Astronaut nonstop for a year.
I never did write that Great American Adapted Screenplay, although I’ve thought about The Astronaut many times over the years. I don’t know what happened to my copy. Given the limited lifespan of mass market paperbacks, particularly one as thin and cheap as The Astronaut, my book probably fell apart and got tossed.
It’s conceivable that Blumgarten was inspired by the 1969 hit record Space Oddity, David Bowie’s story-song about Major Tom, an astronaut who disappears in the vastness of outer space and the inner space of his soul. Both works share the same basic idea, right down to the first name of an idiosyncratic character. There is one significant difference. Unlike Blumgarten’s Tom Beckwith, Bowie’s Major Tom makes a surprise return to Earth, via the song Ashes to Ashes (1980). Today Bowie’s Major Tom is part of our pop culture history, a character everyone knows. Blumgarten’s Tom Beckwith faded into out-of-print obscurity.
The Bluesky book cover challenge got me thinking about The Astronaut once again. I needed to know more about its author and how the book was received fifty years ago.
The Search
First, I had find the cover art for my Bluesky posting. Though The Astronaut was stuck in my brain for decades, for the life of me I just couldn’t remember who wrote the damn thing. I figured that would be easy to look up. Google proved me wrong. First I did a search on “Books” and “The Astronaut.” That took me straight to astronaut biographies, mission histories, and children’s books explaining the space program. I drilled down further, but to no avail. “Novel” and “The Astronaut” gave me more of the same, with an emphasis on fiction using that key title word, everything from epic sci-fi novels to fluffy Harlequin-styled romances, as well as more kids’ books.
I knew the novel came out in either the late 1960s or early 1970s, so I added those decades to the Google search. A book titled The Astronaut emerged at last. Here’s the cover art:
Clearly not The Astronaut of my quest, though I’ll bet it’s a good dated campy read. Hank Searls was a prolific author, though not all of his output was silly cheesecake. A couple of his novels were adapted for the screen, including another astronaut-themed book The Pilgrim Project (1965). Its movie version, renamed Countdown (1968), was the first major film for director Robert Altman. Searls also wrote some television shows and made-for-TV movies; a biography of Joseph Kennedy Jr., The Lost Prince: Young Joe, the Forgotten Kennedy (1969); plus movie novelizations for Jaws 2 (1978) and Jaws: The Revenge (1987). The man was versitile.
Having no luck with Google, I next tried the Chicago Public Library. Again, nothing. I turned to the online library database WorldCat. Somewhere in the Chicago metro area there must be an answer, given how many public, private, and college libraries we have within a 30-mile radius and beyond. I punched in “The Astronaut” with the expectation I’d get more bios, novels, and kids books. Instead, I got a happy surprise: a listing that seemed to hit all the parameters I was looking for. The Astronaut. James Blumgarten. Published 1974 by Warner Books. 175 pages. The publication date and slim page count all but solidified that I’d found the book of my crazy quest.
My excitement piqued, then tumbled into shock. Worldwide, only 19 libraries have a copy of The Astronaut on their shelves. The closest to me was 200 miles away, at University of Iowa library in Iowa City. The furthest was 9,920 miles at the Central Library of Adelaide, Australia.
Where was I going to find the cover art? I was in too deep at this point to give up. Then it hit me: head to America’s perpetual garage sale, that online entity we call “eBay.” My hunch was correct. The Astronaut by James Blumgarten was offered by a handful of merchants. A similar search on AbeBooks turned up three copies for sale. Thus I was able to get the cover art for my Bluesky Book Challenge (and of course this Substack post).
The Author
So who was James Blumgarten? Another elusive chase. Nothing. Not even a Wikipedia entry. It seemed like Blumgarten was the only author ever to roam the earth who lacked an internet footprint. It turns out that his bio was hiding in plain site. Blumgarten was listed on a pair of websites that have long been part of my researcher’s toolkit: The Internet Movie Database and Find-a-Grave. Between these two sources, I was able to piece together something of a biography.
James Blumgarten was born on November 25, 1920 to Allen and Stella Blumgarten. His father was a respected endocrinologist. After attending Harvard, Blumgarten worked as a journeyman scriptwriter in Hollywood, writing episodic television shows in the mid-1950s. He has a single movie credit, Mister Rock and Roll (1957). The writing for this film is negligible at best. It’s a highly-fictionalized biopic of radio DJ Alan Freed, who plays himself. Mister Rock and Roll is really nothing more than a showcase for great performers who Freed “discovered”—at least according to the film’s factually-challenged story. It doesn’t really matter. You can’t beat the Mister Rock and Roll lineup for late 1950s musicians: Frankie Lymon and The Teenagers, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, and Screamin’ Jay Hawkins. Jazz musician Lionel Hampton and his band also make an appearance. The oddest addition to the cast is former middleweight boxing champion Rocky Graziano, playing himself. He’s with Freed in a record store when Freed has that eureka! moment. R&B records on his radio broadcast will send ratings through the roof.
The same year as the release of Mr. Rock and Roll, Baumgarten and his wife Bernadette moved back east, to Ridgefield, CT. They later relocated to Salem, NY, about 200 miles north of New York City. The Baumgartens had two kids, plus a few grandchildren.
Besides The Astronaut, Blumgarten wrote one other book, the nonfiction work Up Against The Wall (Street) (1972). It’s a tounge-in-cheek journalistic exploration of financial games and counter-games played by high-risk brokers at the New York Stock exchange. The writing itself is okay, but nothing more. A little heavy on stereotypes and histrionics, but I don’t fault Blumgarten for that. Every author is guilty of such verbal excesses at some point or other in their career.
Here’s the opening lines from Baumgarten’s foreword:
Bernadette died in 1976. Blumgarten died 29 years later on September 24, 2005. He spent his final years with someone Blumgarten’s obituary writer called “his longtime companion, Mel Berry”3 The obituary also stated “Mr. Blumbarten (sic) defined ‘gentleman’ and was, truly, a man for all seasons, his family said.”
And that’s it. I couldn’t even find a book jacket author photo.
The Disappearance
Now that I had the author and book cover, I wanted some contemporary reviews of The Astronaut. Again, nothing. Not The New York Times, not Kirkus, not Publishers Weekly. All I could find was the occasional listing in obscure inventories of sci-fi novels. One database stated that Blumgarten’s novel was reviewed by Locus, a 1970s magazine (and now blog) devoted to sci-fi, horror, and fantasy genres. That review is not archived on the Locus website.
The only other thing I could find that was even close to a critique was from the academic journal The Georgia Review, summer 1979 issue, some five years after The Astronaut was published. The book gets just a passing mention in an article titled “The View from Space: Notes on Space Exploration and Recent Writing” by Ronald Weber, Notre Dame University professor of American studies, with a speciality in journalism, literature, and culture. “The View From Space” gives serious consideration to post-Apollo 11 books written by literary superstars, including Norman Mailer’s Of a Fire on the Moon (1970), Saul Bellow’s Mr. Sammler’s Planet (1970), and John Updike’s Rabbit Redux (1971). Blumgarten’s The Astronaut is worthy only of two paragraphs, most of which are plot summary. Weber wraps it up by giving away the novel’s ending. He doesn’t even have the courtesy of calling out “spoiler alert!” before quoting Weiss’s bleak concluding thoughts.
The Epilogue
I never did get that Great American Adapted Screenplay written, though occasionally I still think about taking a crack at it. I once thought about rewriting The Astronaut on as a novel my own terms, but that would amount to nothing more than plagiarism.
Although I’ve found those copies of The Astronaut on eBay, I haven’t bought a replacement for my long-lost book. I’m not sure why. Most likely because I’m just too damn cheap to fork over a now-disproportionate 2024 price for what was a buck and a quarter paperback fifty years ago. Inflationary cost plus taxes and shipping charges puts any copy of The Astronaut well north of 12 to 18 dollars, average. That figure blasts off like a rocket and into the stratosphere of 25 to 30 smackers if I want my copy shipped from a UK bookseller. Too much scratch for my tastes.
But maybe, just maybe I’m not buying The Astronaut because I want to keep the memory of the novel tucked away in my personal canon of Great Books. Perhaps I’d be disappointed if plot and prose that enraptured my library brazen theft paperback rack exchange 15-year-old self turns out to be a lousy adult read. That could explain why the novel and Blumgarten both disappeared. I hope not.
That said, if anyone wants to buy me a copy of The Astronaut by James Blumgarten for a Chanukah present….
Story Links:
James Blumgarten TV and Film credits on IMDB
James M. Blumgarten final resting place on Find-a-Grave
Read Up Against the Wall (Street), available for checkout on Internet Archive
Some info on cover artist Jim Spanfeller
Read Ronald Weber’s analysis of The Astronaut and other books on The Georgia Review. You’ll first need to register for a free account on JSTOR
An appreciation of Mr. Rock and Roll at the Forgotten Films website
The real history of Project Mercury on the NASA website.
And just for grins, the Hank Searls Wikipedia entry
What are your favorite obscure books? Or maybe you’ve read The Astronaut? Either way, jump into the fray and give your all in my comment section.
Thanks for reading The Typewriter's Collage. Connect with me on Bluesky, Threads, and Instagram at the handle @RealArnieB. I’m on LinkedIn and Facebook under my real name. While you’re at it, click your mouse or trackpad over to my website, www.arniebernstein.com.
No more Twitter: I’ve joined the eXodus and made my eXit. I’m done with the twits.
And just because you’ve made it this far, here’s your bonus content:
First, David Bowie’s official video of Space Oddity
And here’s the sequel Ashes to Ashes
2001: A Space Odyssey and Bonnie and Clyde are the two primary movies that changed how I watch, learn, and appreciate cinema. All these years later, the duo is still holding its own in my personal list of top ten favorite films.
I’m not the only cinemaphile of this opinion. In the 1982 book The Three Stooges Scrapbook, one person interviewed by the authors said “I don't think the Stooges were funny. I'm not putting you on, I'm telling the truth—they were physical, but they just didn't have any humor about them.” The interviewee? No less than Curly Joe DeRita. He added “I was with the Stooges for 12 years and it was a very pleasant association but I just don't think they were funny.” Amen, brother.
A little further digging suggests that “Mel” is short for either Melissa or Mary. Though I inadvertently found Mel, I’ll respect her privacy and just leave it there. She’s in her mid-90s.
If you are not familiar with S.J. Perelman's essays titled "Cloudland Revisited:" let me recommend them. (I read them in The Most of S.J. Perelman). Each is a latter-day rereading of a book that thrilled him in his adolescence and, being dime novels, come up short in the rereading.
Hey Arnie. This was a good read. Also, thanks for remembering the NIU shooting. That one often gets forgotten in the firehose of mass shootings that followed on its heels.