I like Peanuts. The holiday specials were always a must-see for most of my life. While I’m not the biggest fan, I’ve always enjoyed the cartoons and the 2015 Peanuts movie. I love doing the dances that were popularized by the Christmas special. When I came across the book Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography by David Michaelis that tells the life story of Charles M. Schulz – the creator of the original comic strip, I thought it would be intriguing, and it certainly was. It’s great for any Peanuts aficionado, Charlie Brown if one is willing to look at both the savory and unsavory parts of the cartoonist’s life.
Schulz and Peanuts is the first full-length biography of Charles M. Schulz. Charles Schulz, the most widely syndicated and beloved cartoonist of all time, is also one of the most misunderstood figures in American culture. Now, David Michaelis provides the means to pull back the curtain to see how this private man helped to shape the national imagination. The son of a barber, Schulz was born in Minnesota to modest, working class roots. In 1943, just three days after his mother′s tragic death from cancer, he was shipped out for boot camp and the war in Europe. The sense of shock and separation never left him. And these early experiences would shape him for the rest of his life. With Peanuts, Schulz embedded adult ideas in a world of small children to remind the reader that character flaws and childhood wounds are with us always. That comic strip profoundly influenced the country in the second half of the 20th century. But the strip was anchored in the collective experience and hardships of Schulz′s generation-the generation that survived the Great Depression and liberated Europe and the Pacific and came home to build the post-war world.
Before I begin, I have to address the controversy that surrounded the biography when it was published in 2007. When Michaelis wrote it, Charles Schulz’s family gave him access to all kinds of materials. However, they, especially Charles’s eldest son Monty, expressed dissatisfaction when the biography was released. These grievances were listed in a New York Times article. I won’t go through each of them here, but I’ll sum them up as this: they were concerned with the omission of certain facts and how many unsavory details that were included in the book like Charles’ melancholy and his affair during his first marriage.
Even though the book has tabloid elements, I felt that it was fair towards its subject. Michaelis illustrates Schulz as a man who was never able to be happy. The cartoonist even said that himself during his honeymoon with his first wife Joyce Halverson. Even when she built so many things for him like an ice rink, he still couldn’t be as affectionate as she wanted him to be. Good grief! At the same time, the author acknowledges that the creator had the knack to translate his melancholic nature into the Peanuts comic strip, which is what made it special. How much influence Schulz’s friends and family had on the comics is debatable. As Michaelis points out, the humorist would say that they didn’t have much input outside of names, yet there were interviews that revealed that he may or may not have used some things that his kids did that made it into the strip.
If I had one complaint, it would be that I wish it focused more on the Peanuts strips and cartoons. The biography spends a lot of time on Schulz and rightfully so, but it would have been good to see how he felt about various characters, the cartoons, the Broadway musical You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown, etc. It does that a little bit by admitting that Schulz infused parts of his personality into Schroeder, Snoopy, and Charlie Brown, yet how did he react to the other things? For example, how did he feel about A Charlie Brown Christmas winning an Emmy? I would have liked to see more of that.
Holter Graham narrates the audiobook. He’s been in movies like Maximum Overdrive, the original Hairspray, and Fly Away Home, but he’s best known for his work on audiobooks like Acheron by Sherrilyn Kenton, Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House by Michael Wolff, and The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11 by Garrett Graff as well as being the voice of HBO. For a book that’s over 600 pages, Graham is great at maintaining a steady pace that never slogs. In addition, he infuses enough emotion, so readers can feel the gravity of the situation being described. I can see why he’s often in demand as a narrator, especially for nonfiction stories. The main downside of the audiobook was the lack of photographs. Apparently, the physical book had plenty of them, which would have helped to see what Michaelis was talking about, particularly how he describes specific Peanuts strips and Schulz’s crushes aka his girlfriends. Nonetheless, the audiobook was still worth listening to due to Graham’s performance.
Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography by David Michaelis is a good read, Charlie Brown. It packs so much information about Charles Schulz’s life in an unbiased manner. Are there things that people might be uncomfortable with given his wholesome image? Yes, but then again, not everyone is a saint. As I mentioned earlier, I would definitely recommend this to Peanuts fans as long as they know what they’re getting into. It’s not a perfect biography, but it’s still worth the read.
Before I go, I want to let everyone know that I recorded another episode of the Adapt Me Podcast this month. Jesse McAnally – co-host of The Cheese Wheel Podcast – and I will discuss how we would adapt this biography. Check it out at this link!
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Book Reviews by a Chick Who Reads Everything 