Susan Ellison (1960-2020) | SFScope (original) (raw)

I’ve just learned that Susan Ellison, Harlan Ellison’s widow, died this weekend. Her death is announced on the web site HarlanEllisonBooks.com, with no details, but with the quasi-autobiographical story titled “Susan,” which Harlan wrote in 1993 (read it at this link).

Harlan Ellison was born in 1934, and died in 2018. In between, he reveled in being the enfant terrible of American speculative fiction (not to mention Hollywood). He was a key component to the New Wave of sf. He was a thoughtful, pugnacious man with a strong sense of right and wrong. Many fans wore as badges of honor their Harlan stories, in which he yelled at them, insulted them, or otherwise found them wanting.

I knew him differently. To me, that loud, raging person was just a stage persona. In private, to his friends, he was equally fierce and unyielding in his love and support; whatever was needed, whenever, wherever, he would do what he could to provide it.

Harlan had been married four times—none of those marriages lasted more than four years. And then he met Susan Toth, who was 26 years younger than he. They married in 1986, and remained together until Harlan’s death.

I talk about Harlan because I never got to know Susan as anyone other than Harlan’s wife. But the woman I knew, however superficially, was as staunch a supporter of Harlan as the Harlan I knew supported his friends. She was his wife, his friend, his protector, his business partner. There wasn’t anything she wouldn’t do for him. She was able to temper him when his personality grew too large for the room, and she was kind. A good person.

Read the story. I can’t think it means anything other than what you’d think: in Susan, Harlan finally found the love he craved, and wished he could only give her more.

The photos here were taken at the New York premiere of the documentary about Harlan, Dreams With Sharp Teeth. That smile is how I always remember Susan.

Ian Randal Strock and Harlan Ellison at the New York City showing of Dreams With Sharp Teeth, 8 April 2008. Photo by Kit Hawkins.