Last week was the “reading” and signing event with Max Brooks. You probably know him as the author of World War Z. To me he’s also the super talented son of comedy legend Mel Brooks and actress extraordinaire Anne Bancroft. Super talented because he writes books, comics (GI Joe) and comedy (SNL), ergo he isn’t riding on anyone’s coat tails. To my friend/co-worker Aaron (pictured on the left), Max is a huge deal due to his love of GI Joe and he made WWZ interesting to me despite the movie having little in common with the source material.
So Max came to Book People to promote his new release, The Harlem Hellfighters. A graphic novel telling the story about America’s mostly Black regiment in WWI. The qualifier “mostly” is used since the unit’s higher-level officers were White. Many characters in the story were real people while the narrative is guided by amalgamations of other actual soldiers. Hellfighters was 15 years in the making too. It’s pretty hard to get publishers behind something rather heartbreaking or gruesome. There is silver lining. Max told everybody that Will Smith’s company bought the book’s rights two weeks before it hit the stands. Plus he did receive a positive blurb from Spike Lee, a tough critic on anybody writing about Black history.
Back to why I put quotes around reading in the opening. Max said it’s pretty hard to read from a graphic novel versus standard literature. He borrowed my copy to demonstrate! Either way, I can’t wait to pour over this. Max and illustrator Canaan White ignored no details on what the clothes, hair cuts, slang, etc were like in 1918. This would be a formidable task, especially when the Black American Diaspora didn’t occur until the Forties; Black Americans in New York used different slang and accents than we’re all accustomed to hearing. I doubt many writings or recordings exist for reference. It isn’t for the squeamish neither. The horrors of this war were the inspiration for the cliché the war to end all wars.
Max took questions from the audience. We respected his request to stick to Hellfighters first, then we’d move on to WWZ and other things. He has his father’s gestures! Namely the stance with arms out. Mel Brooks fans don’t need me to describe this, if you’ve seen the key films, it’s etched in your brain!
The signing part rocked. See below…
I think Max thought it was amusing I brought this up, hence the customization. During my face time I told him how I could see his dad in the gestures, “I get that a lot.” He provided a hilarious Lorne Michaels imitation, “Max, you’re disappointing as a son and comedian.”
Keep an eye out for Hellfighters the movie! I plan to hit it on opening day, whenever that may be given Hollywood’s problem with “development.”