William H. Patterson (1951–2014)

For no especially good reason, I've read this second volume before the first of William H. Patterson's enormous two-volume biography of Heinlein. (Volume 1 is now en route to me via inter-library loan.) It is certainly a detailed treatment, with a full accounting of both Heinlein's literary work and his personal life: travel, charity work, political involvements, health and finances, etc. All of this is scrupulously sourced, with the end notes and bibliography themselves long enough to be a show more book of their own.

An interesting thread in this volume was Heinlein's trouble with fans. One of these was the venerable alpha fan Forrest Ackerman, whose relationship with Heinlein graduated through strained to hostile, as Ackerman made arrangements as though he were Heinlein's literary agent, selling Heinlein's writings in small markets with no benefit to the author. Another was Alexi Panshin, who first wrote Heinlein to argue about ideas in Starship Troopers and later went on to author a full volume of criticism Heinlein in Dimension, which by virtue of its vanguard position became a go-to source for researchers seeking readings of Heinlein, and poisoned the well of academic discourse about Heinlein's works for decades. (I've read in the book, and it is indeed awful.)

An aspect of Heinlein's late career that loomed large in this treatment was his dedication to the cause of human blood science and medicine. This issue intersected with his fiction in the novel I Will Fear No Evil, and was relevant to his personal health because of his rare blood type. He ran countless blood drives (often among science fiction fans), wrote articles for reference works, butted heads with blood bureaucrats, and generally advocated for blood donation on every front available to him.

The whole of The Man Who Learned Better treats a Robert A. Heinlein married to Virginia Heinlein, and an epilogue discusses her administration of his estate and the ways she secured his legacy. It seems like it would be hard to overstate her contributions to his work in this period, when she was his first reader, ran interference with his fans, tended to his health, and traveled with him all over the world.

There's so much information in this book that it's easy to wonder what the forest must look like with so many trees in the way. Still, for anyone doing research on Heinlein these days, Patterson's work shows itself as a reliable reference of incomparable scope and detail. show less

Disclaimer: I was recruited into my professional career by reading Heinlein in my formative years, especially the juveniles. I didn’t even pretend to be unbiased when writing this. So read on at your own peril.

When modern SF began, there were two kinds of SF writers: those who broke into print at the top of their powers, like Burroughs and Van Vogt, and those whose later work showed significant improvement. In spite of Heinlein’s early reputation, his writing grew steadily in skill and show more power, particularly in stories at the longer lengths. Heinlein’s early stories were better than those of a beginner, perhaps because he was 32 when he started, but they were appealing more for their philosophy, toughness, and ability to evoke societies economically than their narrative skills. This is not to say that Heinlein did not publish significant fiction in his early years. He soon was producing short stories of revolutionary insight and developing artfulness: “Coventry”, “The Roads Must Roll…”, “The Long Watch”, “Solution Unsatisfactory”, “The Man Who Traveled In Elephants”. I still remember my first reaction when I read “The Puppet Masters” (first in Portuguese, and later on in English):”Oh, no! not the parasitic aliens again!” And then my surprise faded into admiration at the way Heinlein had rejuvenated that ancient idea. Heinlein had a talent to rehash old ideas and making them new again: solipsism, time paradox, immortality, superman, you name it. His skill made the parasitic aliens the reader’s nightmare as well.


The rest of this review can be found on my blog. show less

Because the two volumes of William Patterson's biography of Robert Heinlein make up a single work, and because most readers who finish the first volume will want to proceed to the second, this is a combined review of both volumes.

Patterson has poured as much time and research into this big biography of Heinlein as typically goes into a life of a major historical figure, and the result is engrossing, especially the first volume. Heinlein overcame a childhood of emotional neglect, a lack of show more financial resources, and a highly sensitive nature to enter the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, where he withstood harsh conditions and (especially in the first year) brutal hazing, and achieved what could have been expected to be a secure, lifetime career as a naval officer, only to be permanently retired in his 20s by ill health. Recovering, he entered politics as a socialist candidate for the California Assembly, knocking on every door in his district--no easy task for a man on the introverted side of the spectrum--only to be defeated by a few hundred votes. When the Japanese attacked in 1941, he applied immediately to be returned to active duty, but was denied due to his authorship of a bitter public letter protesting police brutality almost eight years previous. Undefeated, he relocated to Philadelphia to work in a civilian defense plant, where his coworkers included fellow writers Isaac Asimov and L. Sprague de Camp. As the war ended, his marriage of 15 years broke up as he fell in love with the woman with whom he would spend the rest of his life. The first volume ends there; the second details his life with Virginia (Ginny) Gerstenfeld Heinlein, and covers the period during which he was most famous and productive.

Patterson covers all this in great detail--no small feat after most of the major players have died and the traces of some, including his former wife Leslyn, have been largely obliterated. At times the detail is a bit more than necessary, but usually the picture is vivid and illuminating, and judiciously rendered. (The habit some 20th century people had of keeping carbon copies of their correspondence is a biographers' godsend.) The exception, and it's a big one, is in his treatment of Leslyn, an intelligent and vivacious woman who could hardly have been more important to the first half of Heinlein's life, but of whom few historical traces remain, since she had little public life, and the bulk of her letters were destroyed. Patterson's main source and patron for this biography wsa Ginny, Leslyn's successor wife, whose disdain for Leslyn appears to have been boundless. Carol McGuirk of SF Studies points out that "Leslyn’s index entries (“affairs,” “alcoholic deterioration,” “badmouthing of Heinlein,” “bouts of rage,” etc.) speak volumes about the biographer’s special pleading for Virginia Heinlein’s version of this part of Heinlein’s story....When Leslyn discovered that her brother-in-law had been shot and then burned alive in a Philippine prison after months of torture, her depression deepened further. Stress and grief surely had their part in wrecking the marriage, yet Leslyn bears all responsibility. Another index entry on Leslyn includes four references to “psychotic episodes”; yet going back to the pages, one finds passages that fail to document any such thing: “she just locked herself in an enraged frame of mind” (221), “the psychotic episodes went away” (350), “Leslyn was confined to bed in a state of mind that could only be called psychotic” (415), and she was showing “flashes of temper” (537 n24). Only in a grudging footnote does Patterson concede that in 1950 Leslyn joined Alcoholics Anonymous and that she remarried twice, dying in 1981."

Otherwise, where gaps need to be filled in and conjecture must be resorted to, Patterson is for the most part reasonable and open about how he reached his conclusions. His adulation of his subject goes over the top mostly in the endnotes, where he can't resist explaining what makes a particular story so ahead of its time, and advocates for Heinlein's views of religion or politics too defensively. Patterson really gets up on a soapbox as he repeatedly lectures the reader about classical versus modern liberalism, by way of arguing that Heinlein's essential politics never changed. It's not a convincing argument, given that the one-time socialist candidate became an intense supporter of presidential nominee Barry Goldwater, and dropped friends with more nuanced views of the Communist threat to America.

Patterson was not the first writer authorized to write Heinlein's biography. Dr. Leon Stover, an anthropologist, first worked on it before his access to Heinlein's papers and archives was revoked by Ginny. Patterson says that this was due to her "concern at the amount of rumor Stover was soliciting and not fact-checking with her"--in other words, at his widening his sources and attempting to paint a balanced portrait. Her action apparently succeeded, in that getting any sense of Heinlein's flaws as a writer, husband, or friend requires an extremely careful reading between the lines combined with considerable informed speculation.

Overall, however, the picture is of a talented and admirable man who would not have succeeded were it not for many times the usual measure of self-discipline, resilience, and the confidence that comes as a result of both. Heinlein was in many ways more interesting than one might have guessed from reading his novels and stories. I'm grateful to William Patterson for preserving this rich record, however incomplete, of an unusual and fascinating human being. show less

Because the two volumes of William Patterson's biography of Robert Heinlein make up a single work, and because most readers who finish the first volume will want to proceed to the second, this is a combined review of both volumes.

Patterson has poured as much time and research into this big biography of Heinlein as typically goes into a life of a major historical figure, and the result is engrossing, especially the first volume. Heinlein overcame a childhood of emotional neglect, a lack of show more financial resources, and a highly sensitive nature to enter the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, where he withstood harsh conditions and (especially in the first year) brutal hazing, and achieved what could have been expected to be a secure, lifetime career as a naval officer, only to be permanently retired in his 20s by ill health. Recovering, he entered politics as a socialist candidate for the California Assembly, knocking on every door in his district--no easy task for a man on the introverted side of the spectrum--only to be defeated by a few hundred votes. When the Japanese attacked in 1941, he applied immediately to be returned to active duty, but was denied due to his authorship of a bitter public letter protesting police brutality almost eight years previous. Undefeated, he relocated to Philadelphia to work in a civilian defense plant, where his coworkers included fellow writers Isaac Asimov and L. Sprague de Camp. As the war ended, his marriage of 15 years broke up as he fell in love with the woman with whom he would spend the rest of his life. The first volume ends there; the second details his life with Virginia (Ginny) Gerstenfeld Heinlein, and covers the period during which he was most famous and productive.

Patterson covers all this in great detail--no small feat after most of the major players have died and the traces of some, including his former wife Leslyn, have been largely obliterated. At times the detail is a bit more than necessary, but usually the picture is vivid and illuminating, and judiciously rendered. (The habit some 20th century people had of keeping carbon copies of their correspondence is a biographers' godsend.) The exception, and it's a big one, is in his treatment of Leslyn, an intelligent and vivacious woman who could hardly have been more important to the first half of Heinlein's life, but of whom few historical traces remain, since she had little public life, and the bulk of her letters were destroyed. Patterson's main source and patron for this biography wsa Ginny, Leslyn's successor wife, whose disdain for Leslyn appears to have been boundless. Carol McGuirk of SF Studies points out that "Leslyn’s index entries (“affairs,” “alcoholic deterioration,” “badmouthing of Heinlein,” “bouts of rage,” etc.) speak volumes about the biographer’s special pleading for Virginia Heinlein’s version of this part of Heinlein’s story....When Leslyn discovered that her brother-in-law had been shot and then burned alive in a Philippine prison after months of torture, her depression deepened further. Stress and grief surely had their part in wrecking the marriage, yet Leslyn bears all responsibility. Another index entry on Leslyn includes four references to “psychotic episodes”; yet going back to the pages, one finds passages that fail to document any such thing: “she just locked herself in an enraged frame of mind” (221), “the psychotic episodes went away” (350), “Leslyn was confined to bed in a state of mind that could only be called psychotic” (415), and she was showing “flashes of temper” (537 n24). Only in a grudging footnote does Patterson concede that in 1950 Leslyn joined Alcoholics Anonymous and that she remarried twice, dying in 1981."

Otherwise, where gaps need to be filled in and conjecture must be resorted to, Patterson is for the most part reasonable and open about how he reached his conclusions. His adulation of his subject goes over the top mostly in the endnotes, where he can't resist explaining what makes a particular story so ahead of its time, and advocates for Heinlein's views of religion or politics too defensively. Patterson really gets up on a soapbox as he repeatedly lectures the reader about classical versus modern liberalism, by way of arguing that Heinlein's essential politics never changed. It's not a convincing argument, given that the one-time socialist candidate became an intense supporter of presidential nominee Barry Goldwater, and dropped friends with more nuanced views of the Communist threat to America.

Patterson was not the first writer authorized to write Heinlein's biography. Dr. Leon Stover, an anthropologist, first worked on it before his access to Heinlein's papers and archives was revoked by Ginny. Patterson says that this was due to her "concern at the amount of rumor Stover was soliciting and not fact-checking with her"--in other words, at his widening his sources and attempting to paint a balanced portrait. Her action apparently succeeded, in that getting any sense of Heinlein's flaws as a writer, husband, or friend requires an extremely careful reading between the lines combined with considerable informed speculation.

Overall, however, the picture is of a talented and admirable man who would not have succeeded were it not for many times the usual measure of self-discipline, resilience, and the confidence that comes as a result of both. Heinlein was in many ways more interesting than one might have guessed from reading his novels and stories. I'm grateful to William Patterson for preserving this rich record, however incomplete, of an unusual and fascinating human being. show less