Big Sam Was My Friend by Harlan Ellison

 


Big Sam Was My Friend by Harlan Ellison, one of seven tales in the collection - I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream. You can also listen to a reading of the tale via YouTube. Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hptz7...

By my ear, the narrator of Harlan's yarn could easily fit into a work by William Faulkner, Eudora Welty or Robert Penn Warren. Big Sam Was My Friend does qualify as New Wave SF since there's interplanetary travel (no scientific explanations; it just happens), teeping (ability to read minds) and teleporting (ability to beam oneself across space).

Here's what Harlan had to say about Big Sam Was My Friend, written at a time when he was in the US Army, stationed in Kentucky and reflecting on what he termed the "Southern intellect.":

"We allow terrible things to happen, and turn our faces away in horror, but we never commit ourselves. Either we feel we are not in a position to do any good - ludicrous when examined closely - or we cop-out intellectually, rationalizing the nature of the crime, and the nature of the struggle in the deepest, most esoteric, and most cheaply hypocritical terms. There is a song the kids in SNCC sing. It goes, “Which side are you on?” and that, friends, is where it’s at. You’re either for, or against. The time for fence-sitting is long past. Excuse the militancy. All this is from the viscera, and has very little to do with Big Sam Was My Friend."

Ah, Harlan, the irony! And what timing. I read this Harlan Ellison tale the same day all those mean-spirited thugs stormed Capital Hill. When was the last time you were out in public and heard a racist remark or witnessed nastiness or brutality leveled against someone? Did you act or did you remain passive?