Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue With His Century

by Robert A. Heinlein

  Ticky at Camp, or Why a Blue Ribbon is not like a Red Ribbon

  Ticky in School, or Growing Pains make Big Girls

  Midshipman Ticky, or the Pie-Bed Mystery at Holyoke

  Ticky in Washington, or peril among the Bureaucrats

  Ticky at Snafu Manor, or Love has a low priority.

  Ticky in Hollywood, or You can’t stay on ice forever.

  (In preparation) Ticky in a Trailer Coach; Ticky at Pike’s Peak; Ticky in Mexico City; Ticky on the Moon.

  love, love, love, Bob61

  Heinlein also had accumulated a number of other writing chores during the time of his crisis with Leslyn, and they were becoming urgent: a “resident expert” job on science-fiction writing, for one. Since The Bomb, there was suddenly a lot of interest in science fiction, and a kind of minor industry had already grown up, advising teachers and especially librarians how to recognize good science fiction and sort the wheat from the pulp chaff. Heinlein was supposed to write a short introduction to the theory and practice of science fiction for beginners. He was still collecting notes for “On the Themes of Speculative Fiction.”

  The editor at Scribner’s had approved his space cadet idea for a second boys’ book, so he put that on the back burner to germinate ideas. “‘It’s Great to Be Back!’” appeared in the Post on July 26, 1947, the third of the four stories he had sold to them. Heinlein also tried to develop straightforward stories of contemporary life for the slicks market—that was their bread and butter. Next he wrote a “veteran’s” story, working up his notes about the man who had frightened himself to death in the TB ward at Fitzsimmons. If it was carefully told, so that nothing pegged it to 1932, he could let the reader assume it dealt with World War II veterans. That story had haunted him for fifteen years, with its encapsulation of fortitude versus extraordinary courage—good enough reason to suspect it would work well in the slicks. He put a carbon set in the typewriter and stared at it for a day. Nothing came. And then, suddenly, it began to come, in dribbles. “It sort of smells,” he wrote to Ginny,62 but it did progress, and at least the logjam was broken. He got through “Three Brave Men” and sent it off to Blassingame to market—but two deaths in a routine medical procedure and no upbeat ending caused it to run into problems. “This story has been rejected more times than a wet dog at a garden party,” he later told another editor.63

  American Legion magazine sent it back with the comment that they liked the story but as a matter of policy did not print fiction which implied that medical services in our veterans hospitals were defective. Another editor claimed that it was a known fact of psychology that it was impossible to frighten a man to death, so the story rested on a false premise. (That’s the trouble with truth; it lacks the plausibility of fiction.)64

  Between bouts of correcting manuscript and generating story, Heinlein was able to power through his “speculative fiction” article, two thousand words with a working title “How To, in Four Tricky Lessons.” In 1941, he had repackaged Jack Woodford’s advice to writers presumptive, cautioning that they could not afford to take themselves too seriously: writing is a commercial product. Now Heinlein expanded those thoughts into five rules for commercial writing:

  1. You must write.

  2. You must finish what you start.

  3. You must refrain from rewriting except to editorial order.

  4. You must put it on the market.

  5. You must keep it on the market until sold .65

  Making these rules into professional habits, he said, had more to do with writing and selling speculative fiction to its commercial markets than any amount of theoretical background. Failing at any one of these points was the main reason there were so few professional science-fiction writers—and so many failed wannabes.66

  By the time he got the article to Blassingame, the original editor who had asked for it had changed his mind. The piece went on the open market67—and was almost immediately snapped up by Lloyd Eshbach, Heinlein’s publisher for Beyond This Horizon; it was just exactly what Eshbach needed to round out a slim book of critical essays he was putting out, Of Worlds Beyond . One of Heinlein’s personal heroes, Eric Temple Bell (“John Taine”), later told him, “That book should be made available in writing classes.”68

  And his personal life was beginning to settle. He hadn’t lost as many friends as he had feared. Allan Gray, his buddy from the Naval Academy, wrote him sympathetic and understanding condolences acknowledging the sadness of such a breakup. “Somehow I had it all figured out that you and Leslyn came about as near to knowing what you wanted and having accepted the necessary deficiencies, as anyone I knew.”69 Bill Corson, the Wentzes, and the Sangs had already assured him of their continuing friendship. And as Sprague de Camp brought the gossip to their social set on the East Coast, reassurances came from them, too. Isaac Asimov expressed sympathy, as did Willy Ley: “Olga and I are very sorry about it all, but we also realize that you must have had good and sufficient reason.”70 With most of them, he was glad to be able to drop it—to not have to talk about it. Most of them tried not to take sides, though Vida Jameson was definitely Leslyn’s friend, and her fiancé, Cleve Cartmill (who seemed to be diving into a bottle himself),71 sided with Vida.

  When the Corsons or the Sangs invited him for dinner—frequently—they even made a point of not talking about his domestic situation, offering the by-now-misplaced consolations of liquor72 (for a time following the separation, Heinlein feared he might also be an alcoholic73) but also congenial companionship and conversation instead about “the War-Prophets, the ‘flying saucers’ or who rubbed out Bugsy Siegel.”74 Cal Laning, though, was another matter. Heinlein had been unsure how Cal Laning would react: Leslyn had been his find, and his own girl before Heinlein took her away in 1932. Now Laning assured him of continuing regard and respect. “Of course I am No. 1 with you in regard to your divorce,” Laning wrote:

  That is, you are my friend of extraordinary bonds, beyond comparison to my attachment to Leslyn. I am terribly sorry to see the break up and sympathetic with each of you. I do believe you are probably clear sighted, whatever the reasons are. 75

  That assurance apparently eased his mind somewhat. Heinlein wrote back:

  I greatly appreciate your comment about my domestic bust-up. One of the things I had to consider was just how many friends I would have left and it is very heartening to discover how small the attrition was.

  I knew this bust-up would distress you especially. I am very sad about it myself but it had become necessary if I was to retain my sanity and regain my health—as it is I tried to hold things together about three years too long. I don’t want to indulge in recriminations, nor to justify my actions, but I know you will believe me when I say that I did not want it to happen and did not go ahead while I saw any hope of getting back to peaceful understanding—you may hear quite a different story from Leslyn .76

  And in fact, Leslyn had been spreading “quite a different story”—several of them, in fact. “Thanks for the tip about not talking about my affairs,” he wrote Laning.

  Leslyn has been shooting off her face all over town and I have run across her tracks many times … . I have been most careful to keep my affairs to myself. Leslyn has done just the opposite—which gives me a black eye at first, I suppose, but in the long run my policy of privacy and silence will justify itself, I believe .77

  Indeed, as time went on, Robert found that Leslyn’s poisoning of the well had been going on for months:

  I find that my friends have been keeping their mouths shut for a long time and that Leslyn had been spilling her guts to anyone who would listen for many months before I left her, and she overdid it. She had been describing me as psychotic and building up an involved case to prove it. Bill and Lucy [Corson] told me that they used to listen to these long harangues and find me the same as I always had been and had concluded thereby quite a while back that Leslyn was loony as could be. Bill says that he had worried for months for fear I could not leave Leslyn an
d then felt obligated after I did leave her to pass on to me a lot of grisly stuff to insure that I would not come back to her. The latter decision cost him some worry. Bill is not disposed to stick his nose in other peoples’ business.78

  Remarkably, not one person who left any recorded commentary about this time in published memoirs or public archives had anything to say in support or defense of Leslyn.

  Leslyn had sold the house and its contents, receiving, after fees and taxes, $8,500. Abandoning their painfully collected books hurt .79 He had intended to go through the books after she took her pick of them80—but that was what “abandoning your baggage” meant.

  Once the divorce hearing was over—in August, presumably (though, as July wore on, Leslyn had still not filed the divorce papers)—he planned to travel, get entirely out of the Los Angeles area and all its social complications. His world-saving days were over—and the international situation had clarified chillingly.

  Incidentally, I’m making use of this bust-up to decentralize … . Time has run out; Russia has made it clear that, in time, she expects to fight. I assume that she now has the Bomb and will have sufficient stockpiles by the time she has an efficient long-distance carrier. I suppose we will be smashed. You have more data than I have, but, from the outside, I see no hope, other than possible good luck and good political breaks. My writings continue to talk “One World,” but I’m whistling in the dark.81

  In the same letter he requested that the “orange-slice” pole-to-pole orbit he worked out for the article with Laning be registered with Proceedings of the United States Naval Institute as the “Heinlein grid.”

  Robert did not speak of Ginny in his letters to his friends, but she had quietly become a fixture in his life. Her father had a heart scare that July, and she worried that she might have to go back to New York to take care of him. She did not want to leave Robert at this fragile time—and feared that the relationship would break apart if she left now. Nonsense, Robert told her.

  You have already restored me to the point where I can get by without going to pieces in your absence … .

  Do not fear separation. We are tenacious ones, each of us. I won’t change my mind; I am sure that you won’t … . Do what you need to do and feel sure that Robert will be behind you, backing you up, approving your decision and helping you to accomplish it—and loving you.

  I love you, Ginny, and want you to be happy.82

  Fortunately, it turned out to be a false alarm. And Heinlein was back in production. Ginny was on his mind, and story ideas started to come out of their conversations. She must at some point have lamented the fact that she still had to share a bathroom at the Studio Club, just as she had to share the bathroom at the house where she was working before, because the next story he started turned on that gimmick. “A Bathroom of Her Own” imagines Heinlein being in a political campaign against Ginny. He would have been in trouble! “Female candidates are poison to run against at best,” he wrote in the story:

  [Y] ou don’t dare use the ordinary rough and tumble, while she is free to use anything from a blacksnake whip to mickeys in your coffee.

  Add to that ladylike good looks, obvious intelligence, platform poise—and a veteran. I couldn’t have lived that wrong.83

  Blassingame thought it was well written, but it might have trouble finding a market: “Since the hero isn’t very interested in getting elected, the drama’s slight. Hope it goes.”84

  Heinlein’s boys’ book for Scribner’s, Rocket Ship Galileo, was about to come out, and the publisher wanted some promotional work—a knowledgeable historical overview of trip-to-the-Moon stories from the past—at five hundred words for its house organ, McClurg’s Book News. He gave them about 750 words titled “Tomorrow, the Moon,” reaching back to Lucian’s True History and Icaromenippus (about 160 C.E.) and going up to Rocket Ship Galileo. They could edit it to fit what space they had. He gave his new Hollywood agent, Lou Schor, a power of attorney to market Rocket Ship Galileo.

  On August 14, Leslyn filed her petition for divorce, citing “[a] course of cruel conduct … against her will and consent and without cause or provocation, causing the plaintiff to suffer grievous mental anguish and humiliation.” 85 Apparently, she had delayed filing, hoping for a reconciliation. Four days later, she wrote to Jack Williamson, in a tone very different from what Heinlein was hearing about from their mutual friends:

  I have put off this letter for some two months, hoping that I might have better news for you. But it appears that my hopes were quite futile. What I thought was going to be a summer trip for the two of us, turned out to be a request on Bob’s part for a separation and divorce. Bob feels that I am entirely to blame, and perhaps he is right. But it has taken me some time to get used to the idea that fifteen years of habits and associations must be broken.86

  The summons was issued two weeks later, on August 28, together with a Request to Enter Default (meaning that the petition was not being opposed). That meant the hearing was imminent. Heinlein packed up his things and came back to the Los Angeles area.

  30

  ALSO ON THE ROAD …

  Heinlein wanted to get moving, get out of Los Angeles, away from the mess the divorce had generated.

  However the trial was delayed beyond the estimated date—it is now set for the 22nd [of September]—and I did not dare leave California until my affairs were straightened up.

  I have to hang around town because of her [Leslyn’s] unpredictability. I don’t want to find myself in the East, with my get-away money gone, when my next stop should be Nevada—I’ve got to wait until she actually goes through with it. This stalling around has put the damndest pinch on me financially that I have experienced in years. And the waiting makes it hard to write decent copy.1

  He waited, moving from hotel to hotel, seeing no one except Ginny. He had invitations—and he appreciated them, more than he could properly express—but he found that kind of socializing just too hard on him emotionally:

  I am able to stay on an even keel only by dissociating myself as completely as possible from my former life.

  I plan to stay away from former associates and haunts until my emotional experiences have had time to age a bit, until I have become more or less indifferent to my Piglet. Even writing this letter brings up such emotions of sorrow that I can hardly control my tears. I have no doubt as to my course of action—my life with her had become intolerable—but I am by no means indifferent to her. No need to go on about it.2

  Heinlein made a temporary solution to his housing problem: he invested his dwindling cash in a tiny “house” trailer he nicknamed his “Gopher Hole”: “I think the G.H. had formerly been a piano box,” he told Doc Smith much later. “It was all we could afford at the time and was really a fishingtrip trailer rather than a true mobile home; what I wanted was the Airstream Line, but I could not afford it.”3 He set up housekeeping in a trailer court in the far northern end of the San Fernando Valley, about thirty miles from Hollywood.4 His new trailer was so small that he had to keep his condensed reference library in the car’s trunk, but he kept himself busy while waiting, installing light and electrical fixtures.5

  Collier’s published his much-cut article cowritten with Cal Laning as “Flight into the Future” on August 30, 1947. The reaction was not what they expected at all: it was almost as if people had been collectively holding their breath, waiting for someone to say something. And now that someone had, the dam broke: editorials appeared in newspapers about the Spaceship Navy concept, and the article was referenced in radio broadcasts.

  There was an inquiring reporter broadcast out here featuring the question “would you like to be a passenger in the first Moon rocket?” I listened to it and found that it was based on “Flight Into the Future.” I don’t know who set it up. I could inquire but it doesn’t really matter—we got the publicity no matter who wrote the show.6

  Heinlein sent Laning a clipping of a front-page article The Los Angeles Examiner had published. The New York Pos
t gave it six inches with a picture of a rocket. Instead of being called on the carpet, Laning received congratulatory notes from his superiors—and from the head of Army Ordnance. Laning’s sister-in-law had overheard two naval officers waiting in an airport, hoping that he would put out a series of those articles. He immediately proposed another collaboration (with the same back-and-forth about ghostwriting).7

  Laning took the opportunity in the same letter to caution Heinlein not to talk about his domestic problems—unless he felt he absolutely had to get it off his chest. Heinlein was frank about his feelings in the situation:

  I have seen very few of my acquaintances since I left home and have consistently refused to stir the dirt with them … .

  My health is fair, my morale just so-so. Breaking this up after so many years is very depressing—I find myself overtaken every now and then by a catharsis of sorrow. However, Leslyn’s behavior since I left has offered me no hope at all that I could expect any improvement if I went back. I’ll let the details age for a year or two until I see you, but there is no rational doubt in my mind about the step. As it is I hung on three years too long.8