Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography by David Michaelis

The Barnes & Noble Review

And you thought Charlie Brown had issues. The beleaguered cartoon character apparently had nothing on his creator, Charles Schulz, presented in David Michaelis's thorough and revealing doorstop of a biography as bitter, anxious, petty, and depressed. While initially supportive family members have denounced Michaelis's portrayal of the legendary Peanuts cartoonist, the author builds a compelling case that Schulz, a Minnesota native and barber's son, suffered from profound feelings of inadequacy. Even after achieving staggering success, he still vividly rehashed ancient slights like his defeat in a drawing contest in junior high school. Michaelis finds evidence of Schulz's turmoil in the work itself, weaving 240 Peanuts strips into the text. Schulz amassed almost unimaginable wealth licensing his characters for feel-good products like stuffed animals and greeting cards, but the excerpted comics are reminders of how dark and emotionally brutal Peanuts could be. If you didn't need to be reminded of that, then you'll likely appreciate this exhaustive look at the man behind what Schulz himself called "the cruelest strip going." But if Peanuts conjures childhood memories of clutching a Snoopy doll and reading Happiness Is a Warm Puppy, then Michaelis may have uncovered more than you care to know.
--Barbara Spindel

From the Publisher

The definitive epic biography of an American icon -- Peanuts creator Charles 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, acclaimed biographer David Michaelis gives us the first full-length biography of Schulz: at once a creation story, a portrait of a hidden American genius, and a chronicle contrasting the private man with the central role he played in shaping 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, Schulz, a private in the army, 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 his entire 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. It was the central truth of his own life, that as the adults we've become and as the children we always will be, we can free ourselves, if only we can see the humor in the predicaments of funny-looking kids. Schulz's Peanuts 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 postwar world. Michaelis brilliantly weaves Schulz's story with the cartoons that are so familiar to us, revealing a man we've never fully known and shedding new light on a touchstone of American life.

The Washington Post - Julie Phillips

…sensitive and satisfying…Michaelis, also the author of a biography of artist N.C. Wyeth, uses strips as illustrations, a clever way of showing just how very adult these children were in their concerns—and how brilliant it was to endow children with real, adult struggles and anxieties that could be explored without becoming threatening. If Schulz seemed wise, it's because he could tease out profound human concerns without taking sides. Whether Michaelis's portrayal is too dark, as some of the Schulz children have claimed, is hard to say. It seems clear that Schulz was often anxious and difficult, but he also clung to his melancholy as an artistic tool: He feared that without it, he couldn't draw. (His anxieties may also have helped him remain himself while earning millions a year.) Really, he was all his characters: philosophical, gentle Linus; remote, artistic Schroeder; stubborn, grandiose Lucy; irrepressible, sexy Snoopy. One thing that might be missing from this otherwise fascinating book—and maybe this is what the children feel—is an explanation for the joy and pleasure that shine through his work. Where, in his lonely Minnesota upbringing, did Charles Schulz learn to let Snoopy dance?

The New York Times - Michiko Kakutani

It is Mr. Michaelis's achievement in these pages that he leaves us with both a shrewd appreciation of Schulz's minimalist art and a sympathetic understanding of Schulz the man. He shows us how Schulz's sense of vocation as a young child, fueled by a fierce ambition, led him to the career he'd always wanted, and how he gradually assimilated a host of influences to find a voice that was inimitably his own. He also shows us how Schulz constructed an anomalous fictional world that captured the public imagination, eventually reaching readers in some 75 countries, 2,600 newspapers and 21 languages. At times the author's prodigious research may overwhelm the casual reader, who may well wonder if we really need to know about all of Schulz's unrequited crushes, all his panic attacks and spasms of self-doubt. But Mr. Michaelis, who had access to Schulz's papers, has done a fluent job of weaving the many facts and anecdotes he's collected into an engaging narrative that underscores how the artist's solitary childhood in Minnesota—as the only child of a father preoccupied by work and a withholding, erratic mother—shaped both his insecurities and his will to succeed.

The New York Times Book Review - Charles McGrath

Michaelis, who had the cooperation of the Schulz family, tells this story brightly and engagingly, if not always succinctly and without repetition…Throughout the book Michaelis maintains affection for his subject without losing sight of how exasperating and narcissistic he could be. And the smartest thing he has done is to pepper his pages with actual strips from "Peanuts," dozens of them, usually without comment or footnote or even date: an appropriate strip just turns up in the middle of a paragraph that happens to be talking about something similar. Sometimes it's an illustration, sometimes a wry comment. The effect is to continually remind us of why Schulz matters in the first place, and of the potential not just for humor but for feeling and eloquence in the odd and oddly persistent art form where he made his home.

Publishers Weekly

Holter Graham's reading is clear and well paced, and he makes good use of pauses and emphasis for emotional effect as we peer into the miserable life a genius-the fabulously successful and enormously influential creator of the Peanuts gang. Schulz thought of himself as ordinary rather than brilliant, as "melancholy" rather than "depressed." But no kind of unhappiness ever interfered with his 50 years of daily cartooning. Michaelis shows us that "[t]o the very end, his life had been inseparable from his art" and that his art reflected not only his own changing thought and circumstances but also America's political and social shifts from one decade to the next. There are two minor limitations to the audio version: it's missing the 240 Peanutsstrips that illustrated and illuminated Michaelis's text, and one wishes that this captivating and well-researched biography had been unabridged. Schulz's very last Peanutsstrip was published the day he died. Simultaneous release with the Harper hardcover (Reviews, July 23). (Nov.)

Mark Alan Williams - Library Journal

For more than 50 years, Charlie Brown, Snoopy, and the Peanuts gang have entertained readers in the United States and throughout the world, appearing in newspapers, books, and films. Even following the death in 2000 of their creator, Charles M. Schulz, many newspapers continue to run the 17,897 comic strips he produced. But few people know anything about the creative genius himself, a man who lived through the Great Depression, World War II, and the postwar period. An intensely private man, Schulz told people that to read his comic strips was to know him; in fact, that would only tell them part of the story. In this painstakingly and thoroughly researched biography, Michaelis (N.C. Wyeth: A Biography) brings to light and allows readers to reimagine the life of one of the most celebrated artists of the 20th century. Strategically interspersing 240 of Schulz's comic strips throughout the text, he demonstrates how much of Schulz's art reflected his life and develops a clearer picture of this extraordinary American. Recommended for all public and academic libraries. [On Oct. 29, in its first American Masterstribute to a comic book artist, PBS will air a feature-length documentary about Schulz.-Ed.].

Kirkus Reviews

The idolized comic strip and its revered creator, conjoined American avatars of the second half of the 20th century, are both fully explored in this shared biography. As Michaelis (N.C. Weyth, 1998, etc.) demonstrates with the help of many cartoons, the antics of Peanuts' characters formed a clear autobiography of Charles M. Schulz (1922-2000). The barber's son from Minnesota was born to create a comic strip, if nothing else. He was a dweeby, dreamy lad called "Sparky" from infancy-an odd nickname for a serious youth who ignited little excitement. An abstemious churchgoer, he was timid around girls, especially pretty redheads. Sparky was determined, though, to have a cartoonist's career. Home from the Army in 1945, he worked as a correspondence-school art instructor. Early on, he knew three Charlie Browns: One was a high-school friend; one was an art-school colleague who became a bit odd as his fictional namesake became celebrated; the third was an ecclesiastic. The energetic first Mrs. Schulz, usually managing Sparky, morphed into Lucy. The flourishing Peanuts strip provided a lavish California home and studio, spawned endorsements, television specials and books. Happiness was not, however, a warm bank account. With an upscale ice rink came tax problems, divorce and remarriage. The world's most successful and rewarded cartoonist, the man who coined the term "security blanket," nursed anxieties. "Sparky really didn't give a damn about people," one friend noted. Schulz was the subject of many articles and interviews, so much of his story is known, but this fine, exhaustive text is well-organized and knowledgeable. Whether or not Peanuts was inspired, as fans insist, or just insipid,Michaelis offers considerable insight into the semiotics of comics and the psyche of a master of the craft. All that's needed about a prodigy of American cultural history. Agent: Melaine Jackson/Melanie Jackson Agency

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Chapter One

Sparky

We'll probably never see each other again.
—Dena Halverson Schulz

The great troop train, a quarter-mile of olive green carriages, rolled out of the depot and into the storm. Nearly a foot of snow had fallen on the Northwest through the day, and now, in the short winter afternoon, the blizzard veiled the domed heights of the State Capitol in St. Paul and the pyramid-capped Foshay Tower, tallest building in Minneapolis. Snow curtained the Twin Cities from one another, blurring everyday distances. Only the railroad and streetcar tracks cut clear black lines into the mounting white cover.

In the Pullman, Sparky kept to himself. No one yet knew him. At roll call he had come after "Schaust" and before "Sciortino," but except for his place in the company roster he seemed to have no connection to the men and, as one of his seatmates was to recall, "no interest in joining in any conversation," not even about the weather. The snowflakes swirling at the Pullman windows only contributed to his impression that he had been thrown among "wild people."

To his fellow recruits he presented himself as nondescript: simple, bland, unassuming—just another face in the crowd. With his regular looks, he passed for ordinary so easily that most people believed him when he insisted, as he did so often in later years, that he was a "nothing," a "nobody," an "uncomplicated man with ordinary interests," although anyone who could attract attention to himself by being so sensitive and insecure had to be complicated.

Don Schaust, then seatedalongside Schulz in the Pullman, later recalled that, as they rumbled across the Twin Cities, his seatmate remained silent, "very quiet, very low . . . deep in his own misery," and how he had asked himself, "What's the matter with this guy?"

No matter what the others said or did, Sparky sat watching the snow sweep up to and pull away from the window, giving no sign that he had just come through the worst days of his life.

He would never discuss the actual kind of cancer that had struck his mother. Throughout his life, friends, business associates, and most of his relatives believed that Dena Schulz had been the victim of colorectal cancer. In fact, the primary site of his mother's illness was the cervix, and she had been seriously ill since 1938. As early as his sophomore year in high school, Sparky had come home to a bedridden mother.

Some evenings she had been too ill to put food on the table; some nights he had been awakened by her cries of pain. But no one spoke directly about her affliction; only Sparky's father and his mother's trusted sister Marion knew its source, and they would not identify it as cancer in Sparky's presence until after it had reached its fourth and final stage—in November 1942, the same month he was drafted.

On February 28, 1943, with a day pass from Fort Snelling, Sparky returned from his army barracks to his mother's bedside, mounting the stairs to the second-floor apartment at the corner of Selby and North Snelling Avenues to which the Schulzes had moved so that his father, at work in his barbershop on Selby, and the druggist in his pharmacy around the corner, could race upstairs to administer morphine during the worst of Dena's agonies.

That evening, before reporting back to barracks, Sparky went into his mother's bedroom. She was turned away from him in her bed against the wall, opposite the windows that overlooked the street. He said he guessed it was time to go.

"Yes," she said, "I suppose we should say good-bye."

She turned her gaze as best she could. "Well," she said, "good-bye, Sparky. We'll probably never see each other again."

Later he said, "I'll never get over that scene as long as I live," and indeed he could not, down to his own dying day. It was certainly the worst night of his life, the night of "my greatest tragedy"—which he repeatedly put into the terms of his passionate sense of unfulfillment that his mother "never had the opportunity to see me get anything published."

He saw her always from a distance, and as the years went by, with each stoical retelling, the moment became more and more iconic. It was safely frozen in time—as puzzling a farewell in its quiet, coolheaded resolve as the lines spoken by the mother as she prepares to lose her son in Citizen Kane: "I've got his trunk all packed. I've had it packed for a week now." Frequently, often publicly, Sparky laid out the terrible resigned pathos of what his mother had said to him that night. Only as he got older and experienced parenthood himself would he "understand the pain and fear she must have had, thinking about what was to become of me."

The blizzard had brought everything to a halt. But the train drummed on across St. Paul, and landmarks familiar even in the snow slipped past his window, alerting him that his own neighborhood was approaching. Then there it was for all to see.

Mud-brown, two-storied brick buildings huddled along his snowbound street. From where the Great Northern Railway overpass crossed North Snelling he could see down to the Selby intersection two blocks to the south, where since Monday he had sleepwalked through funeral arrangements with his father in his family's rented walk-up. Even before this week of calamities, he had considered this part of St. Paul the setting of "my most influential section of life as a child."

Above the buildings to his right, a Greek-pedimented entrance marked the huge elementary school he had attended. He could see Dayton Avenue, a sidestreet among whose small, somber dwellings Carl and Dena had lived in 1921, during the first year of their marriage, and, next door, the roof under which his father had sheltered the family during the Great Depression, some of the lonelier years of Sparky's childhood, and the scanty backyard where the kooky puppy Spike, living in his own world, had gobbled up some glass. There, on the corner of Selby and Snelling, was their streetcar stop, whence came, among his earliest memories, the image of himself getting aboard with his mother, a small boy on a stiff cane seat, off to the department stores. . . .