Harold and Maude

by Colin Higgins

Book Overview

Nineteen-year-old Harold Chasen is obsessed with death. He fakes suicides to shock his self-obsessed mother, drives a hearse, and attends funerals of complete strangers. Seventy-nine-year-old Maude Chardin, on the other hand, adores life. She liberates trees from city sidewalks and transplants them to the forest, paints smiles on the faces of church statues, and "borrows" cars to remind their owners that life is fleeting-- here today, gone tomorrow A chance meeting between the two turns into a madcap, whirlwind romance, and Harold learns that life is worth living, and how to play the banjo.

Harold and Maude started as Colin Higgins's master's thesis at UCLA film school before being made into the 1971 film directed by Hal Ashby. The quirky, dark comedy gained a loyal cult following, and in 1997 it was selected for inclusion on the National Film Registry at the Library of Congress. Higgins's novelization was released with the original film but has been out of print for more than thirty years. Fans who have seen the movie dozens of times will find this a valuable companion, as it gives fresh elements to watch for and answers many of the film's unresolved questions.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1613731264
• ISBN13: 9781613731260
• Release Date: May 2015
• Publisher: Chicago Review Press
• Length: 144 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.3" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Short and Sweet

What a beautiful story, where the old cliche, "it made me laugh, it made me cry" is realized. The writing style is simple and straightforward, the dialogue is enlightening, and the dramatic turns are both heartbreaking and uplifting at the same time. Harold and Maude, the novel, begged to made into a movie, and the author, Colin Higgins, must have had dramatic aspirations when he wrote this. So they made a movie out of this, one of the greatest movies of all time. The power and basically everything worthwhile in the film comes from this book (not negating the acting of Ruth Gordon, Bud Cort, or Vivian Pickles, who are all fantastic), from which Higgins later culled his screenplay. If anything, the experience of reading the novel may have some advantages over watching the film. It is quick and to the point, nothing is drawn out, and any extemporaneous extractions of theme or mood are left to the reader. Read the novel, see the movie, read or watch a staging of the play. Colin Higgins will be remembered for writing Harold and Maude the movie, but his great contribution to literature and mankind was first writing the book. This life-affirming novel needs to be in stock. Especially when there is so much other garbage overflowing the bookstore shelves.

"Harold and Maude: a Play in Two Acts"

This is one of the most original, entertaining works I've ever read. As a companion piece to the movie, it's a real find.

a guide to life and death

If e'er there was a script that could serve as a litany for the development of human thought and the slow evolution of the human spirit, this is it. Harold and Maude manages to capture and encapsulate the ultimate arguement of modern man, the individual versus institutions.....does society exist to serve the individual or are we all pawns of the society we have created? And are we obliged to subscribe?