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Title: James Tiptree, Jr: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon
Author: Julie Phillips
Genre: Biography
Thingummies: 4
Synopsis: James Tiptree, Jr. is at this point most famous for writing feminist SF under a male pseudonym, and then turning out to be a woman. But her background turns out to be even more colorful, fascinating, and tragic than might be imagined.
Thoughts: As an aspiring author, there's a part of me that's a little bit jealous of Alice Sheldon. The daughter of socialite explorers, when she was six, she went on Carl Akeley's safari to collect the gorilla that currently stands in the diorama at the American Museum of Natural History. She was a debutante, a painter, a scientist, and a CIA officer. She had a celebrated career as a science fiction author, nominated for and winning multiple awards and engaging in long, deep epistolary relationships with several of my author heroes. She had a fascinating life.
She was also deeply troubled and often miserable. Possibly bipolar in a time where they didn't have effective medications, she was occasionally ushered into psychotherapy. But while brilliant and occasionally high achieving, she was a woman who spent most of her life pre-women's lib--which meant that it didn't seem to occur to her therapists that maybe part of the problem was that she was smart and ambitious and not particularly cut out to be a housewife. She was terrified of motherhood, with an overbearing mother of her own, but after an early abortion left her infertile, later found herself mourning having that choice taken away from her. If she had been a man, she probably would have made a perfectly fine scientist or military officer. As a woman, her contributions were repeatedly dismissed. She managed feats of verbal pyrotechnics while writing under a man's name; once her identity was revealed, she struggled to write without her comfortable male voice.
In the end, you end up pitying her more than anything else. She was fantastically privileged, more so than most of her peers, but the freedoms it gives her merely seem to give her more room to flounder. Born a little to early to really join the feminist movement, she struggled to relate to her younger, fierier peers. Born far too early to be accepted, she was probably either a lesbian or at least bisexual but found herself doomed to a messy, unsatisfying sex life that seemed to give her great grief. She formed some of her closest relationships and most found her place while pretending to be someone else. She longed to be acknowledged for herself, but after her secret came out, couldn't figure out how to navigate without that mask. Tiptree is a fascinating figure, but in the end, deeply tragic. Phillips handles her story with sensitivity and deftness.
Author: Julie Phillips
Genre: Biography
Thingummies: 4
Synopsis: James Tiptree, Jr. is at this point most famous for writing feminist SF under a male pseudonym, and then turning out to be a woman. But her background turns out to be even more colorful, fascinating, and tragic than might be imagined.
Thoughts: As an aspiring author, there's a part of me that's a little bit jealous of Alice Sheldon. The daughter of socialite explorers, when she was six, she went on Carl Akeley's safari to collect the gorilla that currently stands in the diorama at the American Museum of Natural History. She was a debutante, a painter, a scientist, and a CIA officer. She had a celebrated career as a science fiction author, nominated for and winning multiple awards and engaging in long, deep epistolary relationships with several of my author heroes. She had a fascinating life.
She was also deeply troubled and often miserable. Possibly bipolar in a time where they didn't have effective medications, she was occasionally ushered into psychotherapy. But while brilliant and occasionally high achieving, she was a woman who spent most of her life pre-women's lib--which meant that it didn't seem to occur to her therapists that maybe part of the problem was that she was smart and ambitious and not particularly cut out to be a housewife. She was terrified of motherhood, with an overbearing mother of her own, but after an early abortion left her infertile, later found herself mourning having that choice taken away from her. If she had been a man, she probably would have made a perfectly fine scientist or military officer. As a woman, her contributions were repeatedly dismissed. She managed feats of verbal pyrotechnics while writing under a man's name; once her identity was revealed, she struggled to write without her comfortable male voice.
In the end, you end up pitying her more than anything else. She was fantastically privileged, more so than most of her peers, but the freedoms it gives her merely seem to give her more room to flounder. Born a little to early to really join the feminist movement, she struggled to relate to her younger, fierier peers. Born far too early to be accepted, she was probably either a lesbian or at least bisexual but found herself doomed to a messy, unsatisfying sex life that seemed to give her great grief. She formed some of her closest relationships and most found her place while pretending to be someone else. She longed to be acknowledged for herself, but after her secret came out, couldn't figure out how to navigate without that mask. Tiptree is a fascinating figure, but in the end, deeply tragic. Phillips handles her story with sensitivity and deftness.
