Daniel Keyes Books

I remembered seeing this movie as a kid with Cliff Robertson who plays a retarded man named Charly who works in a bakery and is shunned by his mom after his sister is born and his sister. He has an operation and becomes smart for a short period of time. After reading this book, I felt sorry for him because when he was retarded he was treated shabbily and when he was really smart people wouldn't leave him alone. I liked both the boook and the movie a lot. A good story telling of Charlys progress reports, a mouse named Algernon and his story on how his life changed. 4.5 stars

In UNVEILING CLAUDIA author Daniel Keyes tells the story of Claudia Yasko, a beautiful but emotionally troubled young woman who falsely confesses to having been present during a triple murder. Yasko, who is presented as suffering from latent schizophrenia, appears to have had psychological problems since childhood, which, when combined with considerable drug use as a young adult, became considerably more severe as she got older.

The first part of the book tells of Claudia's confession to the police which included some minute details which could have been known only by someone who had been at the scene of the killings. Claudia is arrested but subsequently released from jail with the charges dropped as other information is developed which leads to the arrests and convictions of two brothers for these as well as other murders. After her arrest and during the time she spent in jail Claudia exhibited great difficulty in distinguishing reality from fantasy. She often retreated mentally to scenarios in which she became an actress playing a role in a film about whatever difficulties she may have found herself in.

Some time after the murder cases were disposed of, Claudia came to the author Keyes asking him to write a book about the case and her life.
Keyes spent over two years trying to "unveil" Claudia, that is to try to understand her mental processes and, specifically to try to determine how, if she were not present during the murders, she came to possess the detailed knowledge she had of the crime scene. The process was extremely difficult for Keyes due to Claudia's tenuous grasp of reality. And the difficulty was greatly increased as Claudia compulsively lied to Keyes, even when she was aware of the truth, because, as far as I can tell, that is just the way she is. Eventually, though, Claudia provided Keyes with a scenario which explained her knowledge of the details in question without her having been present at the actual crime. And Keyes accepted this scenario.

UNVEILING CLAUDIA is fast paced, well written, and interesting to read.
Keyes clearly has done a lot of research, both in his interviews with Claudia and his cross checking with other people involved either centrally or periphally, and all of these interviews are recorded in the book, creating a feeling of thoroughness.

Ultimately though, despite the positives I have noted, UNVELING CLAUDIA, fell short for me. The main goal of the book seems to have been to crack the riddle of explaining Claudia's intimate knowledge of the crime scene without her having been there, and Keyes eventually accepts a scenario which does that. However, by then Claudia has provided Keyes with many other stories and then recanted them as Keyes' further research
found them to be unlikely. The story he finally accepts, while it may be true, does not really seem to me to be any more likely than the others. In other words there is really no reason to believe any of Claudia's explanations.

I had hoped and expected that the major focus of UNVEILING CLAUDIA would Claudia's personality and psychology and that the culmination of the book would be an in depth analysis of her diagnosis at the time the book was written and of the events in her past which caused her to be what she became. But, while her psychological condition is by no means ignored and in fact is the main reason for the book having been written, there is very little about her childhood or her upbringing, and certainly no final analysis of her condition. The book ends with Keyes' finally accepting a possible explanation for the riddle of Claudia's crime scene knowledge, and that's it. In short, what I feel could have been a more important -"bigger"- book ends in an unfortunately small and anti-climactic manner.

UNVEILING CLAUDIA is hardly a bad book, but it could have been better. Three stars.

i read this after being similarly disappointed by Keyes "The Minds of Billy Milligan" (i read them because i loved "Flowers for Algernon" also by Keyes). both "non-fiction" works are based on the accounts of people who have been diagnosed as mentally ill, and both accounts i feel are unreliable. in this book you learn that Claudia made up a story for police partially giving them what they wanted to hear. i believe she did the same thing for Keyes here. there is no way of knowing when she is telling the truth and when she is lying and there is no reason to believe that any more than half of what she says is true. at times she says she doesn't remember anything and at other times she gives conflicting information in great detail. either way, luckily the real killers were caught and spent the rest of their lives behind bars.

Daniel Keyes has done it again. Another great book he has done. Riveting like all the others.

Charly is based on a short story created by Daniel Keyes.In this novel,he added more details to make it more interesting.The story is about a man who is special ed at the age of 37.The story is all about having his dreams of being smart and whether it was worthwhile or a little too much for him to handle,his struggles and his advantages.See what you think.

This is a very touching story about a retartaded man named Charly and a operation that made him smart and changed his life.

Charly is a touching story of a man who just wanted to be like others and then finds out that being like them really isn't so great.

You get to see the real Charly in the way it was written.

An excellent book