November 1, 2018
Rod Serling: His Life, Work, and Imagination
Kilian Melloy READ TIME: 2 MIN.
The shelves bulge with books about Rod Serling's seminal series "The Twilight Zone" - everything from Marc Scott Zicree's equally groundbreaking "The Twilight Zone Companion" (now in a newly-expanded this edition) to Martin Grams, Jr.'s highly-regarded 2011 tome "The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic," to last year's instantly classic "The Twilight Zone Encyclopedia" by Steven Jay Rubin.
Then there are the books about Serling himself, including daughter Anne Serling's 2014 "As I Knew Him: My Dad, Rod Serling," and about his other famed anthology series, such as Scott Skelton and Jim Benson's 1998 volume "Rod Serling's Night Gallery: An After-Hours Tour."
What could be left to say?
In the case of Nicholas Parisi's new book "Rod Serling: His Life, Work, and Imagination," plenty, for the simple reason that Parisi looks beyond "The Twilight Zone" and takes as his subject the entirety of Serling's ouvre, tracing the great TV and film writer's career from its earlier radio and TV beginnings to the triumphs of TV plays "Patterns" (which put Serling on the national map) and "Requiem for a Heavyweight," and from there to films ("Seven Days in May") and, of course, "The Twilight Zone"... and "Night Gallery"... and "The Loner"... and even a short-lived curio called "The New People."
Never heard of some of these? That's all the more reason "Rod Serling" His Life, Work, and Imagination" is, for the casual Serling fan and "Twilight Zone" fanatics alike, essential. Even when examining the runs of "Twilight Zone" and "Night Gallery," Parisi sticks to Serling's input, and along the way he focuses closely on Serling's thoughts on a variety of topics, such as prejudice and nostalgia, themes to which he would return again and again throughout his career.
You probably knew Rod Serling as a great television writer, but what Parisi proves here is that Serling was a great writer, full stop. The medium was incidental; his messages, however, resonate even today.
"Rod Serling: His Life, Work, and Imagination"
by Nicholas Parisi's
Hardcover
$38
http://www.upress.state.ms.us/books/2157
Kilian Melloy serves as EDGE Media Network's Associate Arts Editor and Staff Contributor. His professional memberships include the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association, the Boston Online Film Critics Association, The Gay and Lesbian Entertainment Critics Association, and the Boston Theater Critics Association's Elliot Norton Awards Committee.
