The Intruder by Charles Beaumont
352 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1959
I have recently been reading the mainstream novels of Philip K. Dick for the podcast. One of the realities of his career is that he tried and failed to write out of the SF genre. It was a constant source of pain and frustration that it didn’t appear to go anywhere in his lifetime; the novels only saw print after he died. In contrast, Walter Tevis (the author of The Man Who Fell to Earth) achieved that balance by publishing classics in genre and out (The Hustler/Queen’s Gambit). So, I became interested in mainstream novels by genre authors.
Hence this hardcore novel of realism and racism from the 50s by Charles Beaumont who is most often remembered for writing multiple classic episodes of the Twilight Zone. I had seen the movie The Intruder Directed by a young Roger Corman and starring William Shatner so I was not devoid of knowledge about the story. I remembered some details but mostly how good Shatner was.
In case you don’t know the sad story of Charles Beaumont. Born in Chicago in 1929 he sold his first story to Amazing Stories at 21 years after dropping out of high school. Eventually ending up in LA joining the ranks of a local community of writers that included Ray Bradbury, William F. Nolan, Richard Matheson, and George Clayton Johnson. Beaumont quickly sold stories to mainstream outlets like Playboy and Esquire. He wrote films such as The Premature Burial (1962), Burn, Witch, Burn (1962), The Haunted Palace (1963), and The Masque of the Red Death (1964). At the age of 38 he died looking more like an old man dying from many hard-to-identify health conditions.
In the middle of this period, the one novel published under his name was The Intruder. A novel called Run from the Hunter written under a pen name is considered by many to be the inspiration for The Fugitive a show he wrote for.
Published in 1959 just one year after the Supreme Court battles over the desegregation battle in Little Rock. The Intruder is written not with the hindsight of history but torn from the headlines feeling present. Also, the point of view of the novel makes it a very uncomfortable read at times. The first 80 pages present the racist attitudes naturally in a way that I don’t think a modern writer would do. There is no African American characters or perspectives until that point, and the lead character puts forward his attitudes without question. When you read the entire book and watch the faithful film adaptation you’ll see Beaumont was on the side of justice but it is a rough read at first. The casual racism of the characters is a shock now.
I had seen William F. Nolan the author speak at conferences about his experience being what he described as extra in the movie written by his late friend Charles Beaumont. (more on that later) Reading this book was an interesting experience for sure. I want to talk about both the novel and the film. Why they are important not just as an artifact of a pre-civil rights bill novel about racism but the counterpoint it provides to the much more famous To Kill a Mockingbird and why it was a very interesting read paired with Tananarive Due’s recent bestseller “The Reformatory.” (which I just reviewed)
The book has the same problem that To Kill a Mockingbird has in the sense that the story of southern racism is told through white characters almost exclusively That is where the contrast with The Reformatory a modern novel by a black author about the Jim Crow South is so different. (and frankly better)
The Intruder is the story of Adam Cramer who is based on John Kasper who was a Ku Klux Klan member and a segregationist who took a militant stand against racial integration during the civil rights movement. Kasper tried to create a third party to fight integration which he said was now supported by both parties. He ran in the 1964 Presidential election with J.B. Stoner but only got a few votes. So think about that his activism inspired this book and even after William Shatner played him in a frightening performance (one of his best) this asshole ran for President.
The movie is a faithful adaptation written by the novelist himself, so if I talk interchangeably about them that is why. The only changes are mostly due to budget concerns. Only four professional actors appear in the movie. Beaumont himself has to play the principal of the school who is a woman in the novel.
Adam Cramer is a slick handsome man who comes from LA manipulates this southern town and causes violence against the black community. Beaumont wants to show how this outsider can come to town and exploit the town’s bubbling racism into violence. A modern novel would have shown an ideal little town and the title character would make them do out-of-character things. The thing about this novel is the town in the Intruder is a bad place. An openly racist town even some of the characters who play icky white savior roles are bigots who are against integration, they just want to "follow the law."
Once we finally get black characters we are introduced to how segregated the town geographically speaking. Tom McDaniel is a newspaperman who has figures from both sides of the debate trying to manipulate him and his paper. Published a year before Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mocking Bird which is a classic taught in school I wondered why the Newspaper man, not Adam Cramer was the focus of the story.
I thought a lot about why To Kill a Mockingbird is a classic, taught in schools and The Intruder is almost lost to time. Both novels have the white savior problem, Tom Mcdaniels almost dies for walking the white students to school, and the Principal risks his/her life to protect the black students. The thing is the Intruder doesn’t have heroes in the same way. Atticus Finch teaches us tolerance, whereas Beaumont’s novel is more of a warning. Not exactly a feel-good book.
The Intruder is not must read unless you are a serious Twilight Zone fans or the writers of the LA Sorcerers scene. It is a good novel and an important artifact of this scene and a time in history. It is a painful read at times but that is intentional.
Side note:
As someone who teaches and writes about the history of Science Fiction, I want to point out that the DIY shoestring nature of the film meant that Beaumont was drafting friends to join the film including William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson who play two of the worst racists in the town even burning down a black church. The most interesting thing about that is that the same team would write and publish the SF classic Logan’s Run six years later. Here they are:
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