Forgotten Book: LISA KANE by Richard LupoffForgotten Book: LISA KANE by Richard Lupoff

Lisa Kane by Richard Lupoff, © 1976 hardback, Bobbs Merrill

This is the 8th in my series of Forgotten Books

Lisa Kane by Richard Lupoff

Richard Lupoff is a Renaissance man. He has written about comics in the 1960’s with his seminal ALL IN COLOR FOR A DIME. He was an editor at Canaveral Press and started a small revival in the work of Edgar Rice Burroughs by publishing several books there, featuring the art of Frank Frazetta, Reed Crandall, and Mahlon Blaine. He then wrote a biography of Burroughs EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS: MASTER OF ADVENTURE which was one of the first (if not the first) serious study of his life, his series characters, and of the genesis of the Tarzan character with a wonderful bibliography of influential works. Then he took up fiction writing a published science fiction and fantasy with ONE MILLION CENTURIES, SPACE WAR BLUES, SACRED LOCOMOTIVE FLIES, CIRCUMPOLAR, and many more. He and his wife Pat were early costumers at the science fiction WorldCon. There is a wonderful photo of the two of them as Captain Marvel and Mary Marvel from a long bygone period. Oh, and they were fanzine fans, winning a Hugo for their fanzine XERO. Oh and he wrote mysteries too, including THE COMIC BOOK KILLER. And horror with LOVECRAFT’S BOOK. Not to mention a million other things. And he wrote LISA KANE.

Now, LISA KANE really is a forgotten book. It had one printing in 1976 in a hardback edition from Bobbs Merrill, not your prototypical science fiction publisher of the day. No paperback release, no huge sales. Just a non-descript book that came and vanished pretty much the same day. IF you go to ABE.com you will find a few copies, less than 10 right now. I believe there was one on eBay today when I looked. Amazon had four used copies. That’s not a lot of availability. But, we have not yet even discussed the book.

LISA KANE is a coming of age story for the title girl, a preteen living in the East being raised by her father. She is concerned because she knows changes are coming in her life. She’s had some health classes but while her friends are becoming women, she has not. Her father is the typical absent minded professor, commuting three days a week from their home to the university where he works, primarily in an anthropological research position.

The story changes when Lisa asks to go to a dance. Typical junior high girl, she wants to go to the dance. She is starting to notice boys, including one in particular. Her father asks when the dance is and then tells her No. Lisa is crushed and cannot understand why he refuses her. She’s a good kid, there will be chaperones, there is no good reason she should not go.

So dad decides to tell her the facts of life. Her life. Not about sex. She knows the rudiments of that. Lisa is a werewolf. The change she is expecting is about to come on her and when it does she will find herself transforming. She says that there is no way she can be a werewolf; she wasn’t bitten or anything. Dad tells her that her mother was a werewolf and the “disease” can be transferred genetically.

Lisa does not know what to believe. She cannot accept that she is a lycanthrope. Dad tells her not to tell anyone, but she’s a preteen. Secrets are not something you keep. So she discusses it with Chris, a classmate and the boy she is sort of maybe interested in. Chris thinks this is odd, because he too is a lycanthrope and they find themselves bonded.

The exploration of the psyche of two young people beginning to find out who they are is handled pretty well. They do not revel in this knowledge. Like all young people, they want to fit in. The idea of having to hide once a month, to be feared and hated is alien to them. Everyone should love them, to their way of thinking. They are not evil, they are just different.

This is probably one of the first books of its type, a young adult novel with serious thoughts and reasoning about what it is to be that different. How do others react to them? Who will accept them?

Lupoff has some fun throughout the novel also, “tuckerizing” some of his friends, at least obliquely. Science fiction writer and oddball, R. A, Lafferty is presented as Professor Aloysius Raphael of Tulsa. Lafferty’s initials stood for those very names and he did reside in Tulsa. There is a reference to Anthony Boucher under his real name and to several others.

This is not a great classic of the ages. It’s not the best werewolf novel ever written. That may be S. P. Somtow’s WOLF MOON. But it is a quirky short novel. It runs about 120 pages. It has illustrations by Marika, but I did not like them. The cover is misleading. It lacks a little on the action adventure side. Yet, I still keep coming back to it. It is a good book and one which does not deserve to be forgotten. Look it up and you should have a good time.

Series organizer Patti Abbott hosts more Friday Forgotten Book reviews at her own blog, and posts a complete list of participating blogs.