Figments

By Stefan Kanfer

A GRAVEYARD FOR LUNATICS

by Ray Bradbury

Knopf; 285 pages; $18.95

When the Soviet President and his wife visited the U.S. recently, the writer they most wanted to meet was Ray Bradbury: their daughter is a fan. Irina is not alone. Bradbury's classic novels of fantasy and science fiction (The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, Fahrenheit 451) have long been best sellers in 20 countries -- including, of course, the U.S.S.R.

His 25th book will probably follow the same course. Here Bradbury resurrects the place he knew as an entry-level scenarist. He calls it A Graveyard for Lunatics; the more familiar name is Hollywood. The narrator is hired to write a wide-scream horror movie. To his delight, he learns that a boyhood friend has been signed to create the most dreadful monster in film history. Searching for inspiration, the buddies visit a cemetery across the street from Maximus Films. Abruptly, the body of a long-buried mogul passes in review. Is it an apparition? What about the hideous beast that begins to haunt the Brown Derby restaurant? And the performer who has played Jesus Christ in movies for 25 years: Is he an actor or an authentic Saviour? Are they all characters in someone else's movie?

As before, Bradbury is at his best when he grants real people and actual events the quality of hallucinations. After all, who needs special effects when he can recall Celluloid City at a time when a young writer could get "mulched in among the ravening crowd, waving pads and pens, rushing about at premiere nights under the klieg lights or pursuing Marlene Dietrich into her hairdresser's or running after Cary Grant at the Friday-night Legion Stadium boxing matches, waiting outside restaurants for Jean Harlow to have one more three-hour lunch or Claudette Colbert to come laughing out at midnight" . . .?