The Man Who Fell To Earth is a 1963 novel from Walter Tevis, whose other titles include the 1959 novel The Hustler and its 1984 sequel The Colour of Money, both made into hit films starring Paul Newman. This novel was filmed by Nicholas Roeg in 1976 starring David Bowie, Buck Henry and Candy Clark, becoming over the years a cult classic.
I was glad to have not seen the film, so I could enjoy the original novel fresh.
He landed in rural Kentucky and dismantled his craft in a farmers field. Taking the name Thomas Jerome Newton, he wastes no time approaching a New York conglomerate with world-wide connections - they can help him raise a great deal of cash, ethically he stipulates, in return for revolutionary technology. His patents alone will raise a fortune, and he can sell off the companies as they become profitable. All this in aid of his folly - he wants to build a transport ship, a private rocket for space exploration. Could he be from the future, or a more evolved planet? Disguised in tall humanoid form with sallow skin and long slender fingers, he must wear human contacts to hide his cat-like eyes, and several plates under his clothes to shield his body. He doesn't need sleep and prefers things dark and cool. Into his world comes Betty Jo, a lonely woman who befriends him and to whom a lot of questions don't even occur. Newton also hires a brilliant scientist to help with the technical aspects of the enormous build, now secretly in progress in Kentucky, and Bryce becomes really, his closest friend. Sure, he has heard the rumours Newton may be extraterrestrial, but...
At the halfway point, the novel shifts to an investigation by the CIA and FBI into Newtons past, and his plans to construct the ship. Once the government steps in, protocols are enacted, analysis and medical procedures inflicted, and a nightmare of administrative bureaucracy begins that threatens the life of Thomas Jerome Newton.
This was interestingly written, but not at all what I expected. Written in the 1960's but taking place in the future world of the eighties gives it a unique viewpoint, but like all good science fiction the story is timeless. It has been called a veiled study of alcoholism, which is an appropriate take. Newton begins to depend on drinking as his enthusiasm for the project wanes. I see it more as a tragedy of a man losing direction, slowly being dragged down and ultimately trapped by a small minded society. Time passes, has he become a failure? This is a novel of loneliness and losing faith in the world around you. Bleak, but certainly with its own merit as a classic of Science Fiction.
1963 / Tradeback / 185 pages
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