The author of a letter written to Father Plotch and included in the Sunday Intruder [St. Fidgeta & Other Parodies, 24].
Anthony Adverse was a heavy-breathing historical novel written by Hervey Allen in the 30s - one of the earliest in the bodice-ripper genre and Bowen notes that he never read it but used to see it on the cheap paperback shelves in the 40s and 50s. "Any precocious kid hanging around the local public library -- once admitted to the adult section -- might have stumbled across it. I was very interested in historical fiction in my early teens. I think John was more into ghost stories and I'm pretty sure that he came to Notre Dame a full-fledged H.P. Lovecraft fan instead."
Myers, on the other hand, "read the damn thing" as a teenager. "It is a huge book, over 1,000 pages, and was probably the biggest bestseller in the U.S. in the 1930's, before Gone With the Wind came out. At this stage I don't remember much about it, save that it was set in the Napoleonic era and that its hero, Anthony, was an orphan (born under adverse conditions, get it?).
"For some reason, Anthony traveled over much of the world, including Africa, where he met a witch doctor, Mnombibi, who hated Christians because 'they ate their god.' Also, there were some wondrously kitschy 1930s-style sex scenes that read as if they had been composed to Maxfield Parrish illustrations. And so forth. You film buffs might be interested to know that MGM made it into a predictably overblown movie starring Frederic March. I remember being driven distraction by the banal, overlush film score of the type, popular in the '30s, that had to comment on every aspect of the action.
"There is in all this a rather tenuous possible connection to Bellairs. The novel became a rather minor family joke when my grandmother, who was reading it when it first came out, once announced to my mother and her younger sister (my aunt) that she was getting tired, so she thought she'd go upstairs to bed with Anthony Adverse. My mother (rest her soul) with her propensity for endless yacketing probably at one time or another related that story to John."
There is nothing significant about Crapple except Bellairs having fun coming up with bizarre-sounding names (also see words).
