MemeMachineGo!

I'm not at Torcon, but this report is just in from Jimcat, MemeMachineGo!'s correspondent in the field. Take it away, Jim.

These are some notes from a panel that was held at Torcon this afternoon on the subject of the rediscovered Heinlein novel, For Us, the Living.

The novel was written in late 1938 and early 1939, and was labeled as "Opus 1" in the Heinlein archives at UC Santa Cruz. However, no physical copy of the manuscript had been found for many years. The trail was picked up by Bill Patterson, who had been given permission by Virginia Heinlein to write Robert Heinlein's biography. He and Robert James, of the Heinlein Society, decided to start looking for copies of the manuscript among friends of Heinlein, to whom he might have sent a copy for review.

Mr. James found a trace of it in the estate of L. Sprague DeCamp, who unfortunately was near the end of his life when James examined his archives and was too ill to answer the inquiries personally. Examination of DeCamp's archives showed that DeCamp had gotten a copy of the manuscript from Heinlein for review in 1938 and held onto it for quite some time. In the 1990's, DeCamp gave his copy to Leon Stover, who had originally been authorized to write Heinelein's biography but later had a falling-out with Mrs. Heinlein. Stover's notes for his unfinished biography indicated that he had a copy of the manuscript.

Finally, James tracked the manuscript to Stover's assistant, who had received DeCamp's original 1939 carbon copy of Heinlein's typescript -- and then kept it in a box in his garage for ten years! James asked, "May I please make a copy of this?" and the assistant said, "Sure, go ahead!" Apparently it had never occurred to the man that anyone might actually want to read the thing.

So, acting on behalf of the Heinlein Society, James turned over the typescript to Heinlein's literary heirs -- the Heinlein Trust, which was established by Virginia Heinlein to award prizes for writing that promoted the commercialization of space. The trust sold the manuscript to Scribner's, and it will be published later this year. The panelists said that you could pre-order it on Amazon now, although I was unable to find a listing. But it should be on the bookstore shelves by Thanksgiving.

The book itself is, by some people's descriptions, not really a "novel" per se. Spider Robinson described it as a thinly fictionalized series of lectures. It shows a basic ignorance of the conventions of fiction writing, which is probably why it was never published in its original form. But parts of it were apparently recycled over Heinlein's writing career, as some of the concepts and plot elements appeared in works such as the Future History cycle and Beyond This Horizon.

Robinson would definitely not recommend it so someone who's never read Heinlein before, but all the panelists agreed that it should be a treasure for longtime fans of his work. It provides a good illustration of the evolution of his writing style and philosophy, and the Heinlein Society representatives drew parallels to the publication of Mark Twain's Letters From the Earth, which sparked off a new cycle of Twain scholarship and publication of previously unreleased material. The agent for Heinlein's works mentioned that there were a few other pieces of Heinlein material in the publication pipeline, including "all of his umpublished non-fiction".

On another side note of Heinlein trivia, I asked Robert James what he knew about Heinlein's first marriage. (James is the foremost authority on Heinlein's second wife -- commonly thought to be his first -- Leslyn MacDonald, and uncovered the first clues while researching that marriage.) He said that Heinlein's first wife was a woman from Kansas City whom he married shortly after graduating from the Naval Academy. This woman didn't want to be a "Navy wife", and refused to travel with him, so apparently there never was much of a marriage other than on paper. They divorced in the early 1930's, and the woman re-married a few years later, then moved away from Kansas City and dropped from the public record. James told me the woman's name, but I've forgotten it. At any rate, the information will be in Bill Patterson's biography, but that is only about half finished at this time, so it may be another three or four years before it sees publication.

All of the fans in the room when For Us, The Living was discussed seemed quite enthusiastic about the novel and any other Heinlein material that might be released. It looks as though Heinlein, like so many other creative types, may enjoy a long and successful posthumous career.

Thanks, Jim!

Updated 10/15/2003: Robert James submitted these corrections in the comments:

Unfortunately, this report contains a number of incorrect statements, the most erroneous of which is that L. Sprague de Camp did NOT have a copy of the novel, nor is he the source for it.

Neither Bill nor I were looking for copies among Heinlein's friends, either.

I found reference to it in some papers that de Camp had, which led me to Michael Hunter.

I never looked through Hunter's garage -- he mailed a copy to me.

Finally, the novel does NOT show a "basic ignorance of the conventions of fiction writing" -- it's a novel, although one in a mode of fiction we don't see much of any more: the social utopia.