In the Waltham apartment, meanwhile, there were two built-in bookcases on either side of the fireplace. They were very small bookcases, but I guess the architects and designers didn't read—just as I didn't use the fireplace.
We did use the bookcases, though. On the top shelf at the right side I placed a copy of each of my books in chronological order, and it
1 Ste The Martian Way and Other Stories (Doubleday, 1955).
gave me a certain austere pleasure to place Biochemistry and Human Metabolism in its correct place, immediately behind my juvenile. I showed the textbook no favoritism.
While the book was in preparation, Dick Hoover of Williams & Wilkins was very optimistic about it, but the fact is that the textbook was a distressing failure. For one thing, just about the time it came out, two other new biochemistry texts appeared—West and Todd's Textbook of Biochemistry and White, Handler, Smith, and Stetten's Principles of Biochemistry. Each was longer and better than ours. And even if the two competitors had not appeared on the scene, ours just wasn't good enough.
10
The year 1952 saw McCarthyism at its peak in the United States. At no time did it affect me directly in any way, but the spectacle sickened me. My liberal friends and I denounced Senator Joseph R. McCarthy to each other and if we were representative samples of American public opinion he wouldn't have lasted five minutes. The fact is we weren't. The average American was all for McCarthy and his simple-minded and destructive "patriotism."
I remembered what Ted Sturgeon had once said at a convention— that science fiction was the last bastion of freedom of speech. The censor minds did not read science fiction, could not understand science fiction, and would not know what to suppress if they did read it. If censorship ever got so sophisticated that even science fiction fell prey to it, then all was over. Every vestige of democracy would be gone.
So I set about giving my opinion of McCarthyism in a science-fiction story. I called it "A Piece of Ocean" at first, then changed the name to "The Martian Way." It dealt with Martian colonists with a problem, who were victimized out of a solution by a McCarthy-style politician and who were in this way forced to find a still better solution. I finished it on June 10.1 did the 18,000 words in four weeks.
In this story, by the way, I described a "space walk" in euphoric terms, over a decade before space walks actually took place and apparently did induce euphoria.
11
As it turned out, my 1951 income tax was the last one I was ever to make out entirely by myself. It was clear that my 1952 income was going to be large enough to make it advisable to get professional help.
Maury Cohen (whom we had met in Birch toft) recommended the firm of Gorsey and Woll to me. I went there and Sam Gorsey worked out my estimated income tax for 1952 for me. In later years, his junior partner, Saul Woll, a very sharp and quick-spoken individual, worked on them for me.
Once, I remember, I said to Saul, "Listen, are you sure I am taking off as many deductions as I might be? Are there any clever devices you can use that I know nothing of?"
Saul looked at me over his glasses and said, "Isaac, when you hire me, I make use of the cleverest device of all."
"What's that?" I said.
"I keep you out of jail," he said.
And I reached out and shook his hand. "That," I said, "is a good enough device for me. Keep on using it."
12
On June 14, Horace Gold called me. He wanted "The Martian Way" but he also wanted a complete revision.
Horace was becoming crankier as time went on, and I couldn't help notice the differences in the way the Big Three editors in science-fiction—John Campbell, Horace Gold, and Tony Boucher—handled their rejections.
Campbell, as always, wrote letters that were verbose, difficult, and impersonal. He based his requests for revisions on content. Tony was always friendly and laudatory and based his requests for revisions on style. Horace, however, was becoming increasingly personal and vilifying in his rejections. 2
I had no trouble dealing with Campbell and Tony and generally went along with their requests if I possibly could. With Horace, however, I tended to become balky, and the crankier he grew, the balkier I got.
I remembered with annoyance the forced insertion of the U. S. Constitution in The Stars, like Dust—, the forced emasculation of the ending of "Hostess," and the long argument over "C-Chute." I refused a complete rewrite of "The Martian Way" and complained about it to Fred Pohl. I told Fred that, as my agent, he would have to protect me from Horace's harassment.
2 Horace once said to me, concerning one of my submissions, "This story is meretricious." "It's what?" said I. "Meretricious," he said, proud of the word (the meaning of which I knew perfectly well). "And a Happy New Year to you," I said. Would you believe that he got annoyed?
Fred interposed, and the request for revision was reduced to a single point. There were only male characters in the story, and Horace wanted a female.
He was right, in a sense. I was discussing a pioneer society, but surely it contained women. I, on the other hand, was willing to accept them for granted. They were not an essential part of the plot and I feared having to create a romance in a story where, as I saw it, there was no room for one.
Finally, Horace said, "Just put in a woman. Any woman. Then I'll take the story."
That gave me a wicked idea and I promptly agreed. I rewrote the story, and gave one of the characters a rather shrewish and scolding wife. That was not what Horace had in mind ("Oh what a woman!" he muttered), but he stuck to his word and took the story.
And even as I began my revision of "The Martian Way," I also began work on the second edition of Biochemistry and Human Metabolism. This promised to be a perennial job, like painting a huge suspension bridge—as soon as you've finished, you begin all over again because the end at which you began the paint job needs another one by now.
Of course, we did not yet realize that the book was a failure, and if we had, we would have nourished the feeble hope that in revising it we could do away with its weaknesses and make it a success.
J 3
John Blugerman came visiting on June 21. He had been in the Army twice. After he completed dental school, he had to return to the Army, but this time as an officer, and he was stationed in a peaceful Europe, so it wasn't what it might have been.
He had been abroad for fifteen months and we hadn't seen him for a year and a half, but he hadn't changed; he was as slim and as handsome as ever. He saw his nephew, David, for the first time.
I took the opportunity of John's presence to go to New York on the twenty-third, knowing that there would be someone at home to keep Gertrude company and to help with David.
I visited Gold on the evening of the twenty-third (handing him the revised "The Martian Way"), and Judy Merril, now divorced from Fred, was there, too.
I moaned about having to go way out to Brighton Beach to stay at the Blugermans', since the subway trip took better than an hour. Judy pointed out that she had the use of an apartment in Manhattan and
said I was welcome to the use of it along with her. I smiled uncertainly since I didn't know exactly what this would entail, and some possibilities frightened me.
I left shortly thereafter without further complaint about the subway ride, but when I got out into the street I found that Judy was right behind me. As we walked to the subway station at the corner, she renewed the invitation.
I said, in a nervous attempt at gallantry, "Of course, Judy, if I'm to spend the night with you, as a husband might do, I would expect a husband's privileges." (I guess I thought that Judy would laugh and refuse and I could go on to Brighton Beach on the macho plea that it was all or nothing.)
But Judy said, "Of course."
And I dashed down the subway steps.
This is not the kind of story I would tell, except that Judy herself told it, far and wide, with heaven only knows what interpolations, and I became the object of a certain gentle ridicule, for everyone knew my pen
chant for making gallant suggestions to the ladies. It was, I think, this story, as told by Judy, that produced the general feeling expressed to me by many a nubile young woman: "Oh listen, Isaac, if I said 'Yes,' you'd go right through that wall to get away." 3
There is a sequel to the story. By the time I got back to the Bluger-man apartment, I was in a deep state of worry. Everyone at the Golds' must have seen Judy leave immediately after me and they must all have come to the same conclusion. It was conceivable that the story, distorted and made worse (if that were possible), would reach Gertrude's ears and cause me infinite trouble.
Once I was at the Blugermans' therefore, I called Horace.
"Horace," I said, "I'm at my mother-in-law's."
3 Note from Judith Merril: The whole point to this incident is contained in Isaac's understated phrase, "making gallant suggestions to the ladies." The fact is that Isaac (who was at that time a spectacularly uxorious and virtuous husband) apparently felt obliged to leer, ogle, pat, and proposition as an act of sociability. When it went, occasionally, beyond purely social enjoyability, there seemed no way to clue him in.
Let me pause to make clear that I am neither impugning Isaac's desirability nor claiming any extraordinary maidenliness for myself. Unattached as I then was, had I for a moment believed in the seriousness of his intent, I might well have been agreeable. As it was, however, I felt certain I would not be called upon to make any decisions about my own seriousness, when I carefully and with malice aforehand created this situation.
A parallel incident that occurred about the same time at a Hydra Club party at the Lotos Club seems to have escaped the famous Asimov memory. [No, it hasn't. LA.] Asimov was known in those days, to various women, as "the man with a hundred hands." On this occasion, the third or fourth time his hand patted my rear end, I reached out to clutch his crotch. He never manhandled me in vain again.
"I don't care where you are/' said Horace. "You're a grown man. You can be anywhere you want to be."
"No. I'm really at my mother-in-law's. Mary/' I called, "come here and say hello to Mr. Gold."
Mary, completely mystified as to what was going on, said, "Hello" into the phone and then said to me, predictably, "What's going on?"
"Did you hear that, Horace?" I asked, urgently.
And he said, cozily, "I told you, Isaac, I don't care where you are. Judy doesn't have to change her voice." And he hung up and left me frustrated.
(Of course, my worries were needless. In the first place, I was completely innocent. And even if I were not, it was silly of me to think that anyone in science fiction would take note of any amorous event, however illicit. The thing was too common to do anything but yawn over.)
On the twenty-fourth, I visited Brad and Marty Greenberg, and from the figures they gave me, it seemed that my five novels had already sold some 30,000 copies in hard-cover, with Pebble in the Sky, which had now been on sale for a year and a half, having sold some 13,000 copies.
While in New York, I gave copies of the textbook to my parents and to the Blugermans. 4
I returned to Boston in time to catch the peak of a heat wave, with the temperature topping 100 on June 26. John left on the morning of the thirtieth.
My relations with Doubleday had become easygoing indeed. No more outlines, no more options, no more let-me-see-a-piece. I had merely to say I would do a new Space Ranger juvenile and that was enough. By July 5, 1952, Doubleday informed me that a contract and an advance were on the way.
I needed a new name for my hero, though. Starr was all right, but David was pedestrian. I couldn't change it but I could give him a nickname—and one seemed such a natural that it occurred to me at once and I never sought another. The second book was entitled, therefore, Lucky Starr and the Pirates of the Asteroids.
4 I did this routinely with every book I ever published. Almost the first thing I did when the author's copies came in was to mail one off to the Asimovs and one to the Blugermans. Each household gradually accumulated a fine library of Isaac Asimov books that threatened to push them out of house and home. Any suggestion that I stop overloading them, however, was met with instant indignation, and I could never stop.
15
The year 1952, was, of course, a presidential election year, and it seemed to be a sure Republican year. This time, unlike 1948, there could be no mistake. For one thing, Truman was so unpopular that it was difficult to see how he could fail to be an albatross, dragging any Democratic candidate down to defeat. For another, it looked as though Eisenhower would be the Republican candidate, and, if so, he would be undefeatable. I hoped earnestly that the Republican Party regulars, who tried valiantly to commit electoral suicide, would put through Robert Taft as the nominee, but they didn't manage.
What I remember most clearly about the Republican convention was MacArthur's keynote speech. He had become the deified leader of America's conservatives after he had been justly fired by Truman, and there was some hope that he would stampede the convention into nominating him by a pyrotechnic display of eloquence. The speech, however, fell so incredibly flat that I said to Gertrude (as recorded in my diary), "He is stepping off the podium into oblivion," and I proved to be right.
The Democrats nominated Adlai Stevenson of Illinois, who was only a name to me. Once I heard him speak, I became very enthusiastic, but that didn't blind me to the hopelessness of the cause.
It was the first time, by the way, that I watched conventions on television. It was incredibly dull, but the novelty of it kept me glued to the set through agonies of boredom.
Henry Blugerman arrived on a visit on July 7 and John, again, on the twelfth. It was Gertrude's idea that Henry, John, and I could all go to Annisquam for a week. She was particularly anxious that Henry get the chance of a vacation in this way. She did try to make arrangements to have a cottage for herself and David, but in the end she felt it would entail more trouble than it was worth, so we all went without her on Saturday, July 12, 1952.
The first night there I heard the Annisquam staff do my version of Kiss Me> Kate, It sounded great.
We were put in a room for three, which was something less than wonderful. Henry, it seemed, snored. Now, this is a common complaint, and I am told that I snore, too (though John didn't). Henry's snores
were, however, stentorian, and I do not remember sleeping at all during the entire week we spent in the room.
Henry and John made full use of the ocean, since both could swim with great facility. I just sat on a shady part of the beach, reading.
Annisquam was not crowded that week and there was a particular shortage of young men. This should have put John at a premium, but he was not a gregarious, effervescent person, as I am, and the young girls seemed frightened of him.
They were not frightened of me. In fact, they found that if they sat around me, I would tell them jokes, sing songs, and make ribald remarks, so that after a while they were laughing and would forget there was a shortage of single men about.
I remember I entertained one young woman (rather plain) with a well-thought-out explanation of why it did not matter whether a woman was plain, why other things were much more important—intelligence, personality, warmth, and so on and so on and so on. And just as I thought I had made my point and nailed it down, she suddenly said, wryly, "But your wife is beautiful. Right?"
I said, "Right," and the argument was ruined.
The high point came on the evening of July 15, after dinner, when I suggested a walk to the highway where there was some sort of icecream parlor. I offered to stand any young woman willing to accompany me sundaes, sodas, or whatever they wanted, and with no limit to the numbers. Five of them came along.
They were all in their early twenties, all single, all reasonably pleasant in appearance. We all walked slowly, with myself between two girls with an arm about the waist of each—and changing girls periodically, so that none would feel neglected. It seemed to me that I was at my best, my most amusing and charming, and the sound of soprano laughter
frightened the birds for miles around.
We reached the ice-cream parlor finally and I said, "All right, girls, anything you want."
The man behind the counter looked at them and then at me (who was, after all, fat and quite ordinary-looking) and said, "All these girls with you?"
"That's right," I said.
He said, "Can you take care of all of them?"
And I said loftily, "Do any of them look unhappy?"
And indeed, they didn't. I loved the look of awe and respect that shone in his eyes.
We finally got home on July 19 and the two Blugermans went on
to New York. Gertrude had managed the city heat in our absence by sleeping on the porch nights. It was the equivalent of an air-conditioned room, and, since the landlord had now put screens around it, it was mosquito-free as well.
David had gotten through the week with no trouble also. In my absence he was weaned—or he weaned himself. In any case, he now rejected the bottle and preferred to slobber messily with a glass.
l 7
On July 23, 1952, we read in the paper that Laurence Oncley had died. He was a biochemist at Harvard whom we had met through Bill Boyd. Oncley was a tall and large man, soft-voiced and pleasant, and Gertrude and I liked him. The news was shocking. He had had leukemia for fourteen months, the news report said, and we marveled at how he had managed to hold up, remain cheerful, never let on. It was absolutely inspirational and we mourned his passing.
Then when we visited the Boyds sometime later, Larry Oncley walked in. Gertrude and I went to pieces. You don't come across three-dimensional ghosts often. What happened was, of course, that Larry was Laurence Oncley, Jr., and the obituary had referred to Laurence Oncley, Sr.
18
At about this time I was making out a will for the first time. Until now it was just a matter of leaving everything to Gertrude. With a child, I would also have to provide for him in case Gertrude and I died in a common disaster, so I felt I could put it off no more. For the same reason, I took out my first batch of life insurance.
In memory yet green : the autobiography of Isaac Asimov, 1920-1954 Page 80
