Flowers for Algernon grow in Allegheny libraries

Monday night was an unfortunate night for Daniel Keyes, a native of Florida, to be in… Monday night was an unfortunate night for Daniel Keyes, a native of Florida, to be in Pittsburgh. Flurries danced in the air and the temperature fell into the 20s. Luckily, Keyes had warm memories of the Steel City to keep him cozy.

In 1960, Keyes traveled to Pittsburgh to attend the 18th Annual Science Fiction Convention. There, he was presented his first Hugo Award for his short story, “Flowers for Algernon,” which described a mentally disabled man whose brainpower is boosted by a surgical procedure.

A Hugo is to a science fiction writer what a Grammy is to a musician, and Isaac Asimov, who presented the award to Keyes, was to science fiction what John Lennon or Eric Clapton is to music.

Asimov, greatly impressed with “Flowers for Algernon,” asked Keyes how he did it.

“If you ever figure out how I did it,” replied Keyes, who was unknown before he wrote the story, “tell me, so I can do it again.”

At Carnegie Library, Keyes spoke about the origins and implications of his story, which he adapted into a 1966 novel that earned him another Hugo.

Keyes, a former schoolteacher, said that the story was inspired by society’s treatment of slow learners and the competitive nature of American primary schools.

“I think we ought to have a class early in childhood development called ‘Empathy 101,'” Keyes said. “If you can look at your neighbor and tell what that person is feeling, you get an A.”

Keyes’ speech concluded the Allegheny County Library Association’s second annual “One Book, One Community” program, in which the library urges Pittsburghers to read and discuss a single book.

“This year, we set the theme to be mental health issues,” said Carri Czyzewski, membership coordinator for the ACLA. “‘Flowers for Algernon’ captured what we wanted to discuss about human intelligence and development, and what society places on these things.”

Czyzewski said that 4,000 editions of the novel had been added to the 46 libraries associated with the ACLA and are being checked out quickly.

Last year, when the libraries stocked up on “To Kill a Mockingbird,” by Harper Lee, the title was checked out more than 50 times as often as usual.

Dozens of participants packed into Carnegie Library’s lecture hall for one treat last year’s readers did not receive: hearing the author speak.

Keyes told the audience that children he taught in a special education class inspired the novel’s protagonist, Charlie Gordon.

One child told him, “Mr. Keyes, I want to be smarter,” but he was bored and frustrated in the special ed class. Keyes then realized that many of the children he taught honestly wanted to be smarter.

Another boy revealed to Keyes that he was completely illiterate. Keyes taught him to read using the phonics system, in which a child learns to read by sounding out words. The boy “just soared.”

But the student missed class for three weeks because of family problems, and when he returned, he could no longer read.

“In a sense, I fused those two boys into the character of Charlie, through the magic of fiction,” Keyes said. Like the first boy, Charlie honestly wanted to be smarter and, like the second, his brainpower soared and then plummeted.

Keyes also spoke about a recent experiment in which scientists genetically engineered a smarter rat similar to Algernon, the lab rat on which the procedure Charlie undergoes was tested.

Keyes, who had just finished his memoir, “Charlie, Algernon and Me,” contacted the head scientist and asked how long it would take, now that scientists had produced an Algernon, before they had a Charlie Gordon.

The scientist predicted it would take about 30 years.

“You writers come up with the ideas,” he told Keyes. “We just follow”

Keyes did not comment on whether or not such an experiment would be ethical.

Keyes concluded his speech by returning to that night in Pittsburgh more than 40 years ago, when Asimov handed him the Hugo award.

“That night, [I imagined that] a second hand grabbed that Hugo award,” Keyes recalled. “It was the kid who walked up to me and said ‘Mr. Keyes, I want to be smarter.'”