Alice Sheldon wrote it under her OTHER pseudonym--Racoona Sheldon. She tended to write more overtly 'feminist' SF under that name. But The Screwfly Solution goes far beyond agit-prop.

Though many remember male SF authors like Silverberg, who were sure 'Tiptree' had to be a man, fewer remember that as Tiptree, Sheldon was invited to participate in a group correspondence of female SF authors. And was then basically invited to leave, when she made some comments (as Tiptree) that some of her sister authors (if only they'd known it) didn't appreciate. Basically, she was told (as Tiptree) that as a man, she couldn't possibly know what she was talking about, or understand a woman's perspective. She accordingly (as Tiptree) absented herself from the discussion.

If Alice Sheldon's work is rather on the bleak side, it's probably not just because of her childhood, or a bad first marriage, or unresolved gender issues, or feeling imperfectly fulfilled in her career.

It's because she saw humanity, male and female alike, all too clearly.

The article on Alice Sheldon inspired me to reply. It seems as if all those who respond to this article do so respectfully and with admiration. I agree. Who was Alice Sheldon really?

She was an intelligent woman, in an era and time when women were continually being stereotyped and in fact, intellectually held in less esteem than men. But this is nothing new: remember George Eliot.

It sounds as if she had a fascinating mother who pooh-poohed stereotypes and had the means and skills to live life on her own terms. Alice Sheldon's mother included her daughter in that golden life, made her daughter an accepted part of it. Her mother sounds like a Heroine: and Heroes are by their very definition difficult to 'live up to.' But who wants to? Isn't it always more inspiring to look up than down?

Why is it so strange that a sensitive and intelligent woman should understand how men feel or think? Men are human beings. Flaubert pulled off the same thing with Madame Bovary: he showed the internal sensitivity and experience of a woman. But these are writers who were far above the banal; they truly did think about their characters.

As for her sexuality, who knows and who really cares? Her first deep and abiding love in her life must have been that goddess mother of hers - so she saw the heroic in a woman in a time and place that denied that women could attain it. I think Alice Sheldon found more solid respect and acceptance in her field of art with a man's name than she would have as a woman to begin with. Intelligent readers of course discount the stereotypes; but one has to be able to publish, to be accepted for publication. In that day, in that genre, it may have been easier with a man's name. And writing is such a strange solitary occupation anyway, especially creative writing: the voice can take one over.

As Colette remarked (I paraphrase) 'You never recover from a happy childhood.'

Colette's mother was her greatest love in her life, and in her childhood Colette attained a happiness and acceptance never to be repeated in her adult life. This seems to be reflected perhaps in Alice Sheldon's experience.

I definitely will read this book, and start compiling Alice Sheldon/Tiptree's writings.

"with the head of a lion she'd shot in her lap"

Now THAT's some transgressive sexuality.

Yeah yeah, but those close shots are so easy.

There was a Tiptree story that I read more than 20 years ago that still sticks in my mind, about the screwed-up connections between sex and violence against women. It's powerful.

It turns out that the story is online, at

http://www.scifi.com/scifiction/classics/classics_archive/sheldon/sheldon1.html

She sure was pretty, to bad she didn't like sex. I'll miss her.

Your "comment" is beautifully written and brilliantly insightful. Thank you for sharing.

Dear Laura Miller,

Thank you for your review of the Alice Sheldon biography. I’d never heard of her. It was the poignance you conveyed of her situation: her being able to experience egoless intuitive creativity - the me you can’t take credit for - only through a pseudonym. Like the Vonnegut story “Who Am I This Time?” about an actor hitting this trap. It’s bad enough when we can’t take the leap into inspiration, but that when we do, it’s often ego-dystonically; that the me that did it, though gossamer, from who knows where?, is nevertheless me; even though a wider me; even though perhaps a wider me taken atheistically; and is still connected to the daylight me; as one would not mistake the work of Shakespeare or Mozart or Annie Dillard or Alan Ginsburg for anyone else’s. Yet if you pat yourself on the back for it, even say it’s yours, you might fuck it up.

So, yes, when need be, if we want to shed unhappiness, we take our ego-self and our egoless self into therapy, or recovery, or whatever benign self-repair works for us. (Her self-repair might have been straightening out society's damage to her sexuality.) We learn that it’s okay to give up an ego which we have disarmed; we can give it up without having to. It's safer that way, given that there are various attachments that can take us away from our true self.

Good.

Best,

Monty Johnston

His non-fiction book can be read free by googling “Rabid Fanatic” +”Monty Johnston”.

But people ought to remember, it's one writer's interpretation of Tiptree/Sheldon's life and work, and not necessarily a definitive one. Since she never got nearly the attention she deserved, there aren't likely to be a great variety of biographies to choose from.

I doubt there's sufficient evidence to conclude she was a closeted lesbian. In "The Women Men Don't See", she hints obliquely that she wished she could be, but it just wasn't who she was--and neither was she comfortable as a heterosexual woman, of course. Living between categories may have been tough as hell for her, but it's one of the sources of her uniquely detached yet deeply empathetic perspective on humanity's ills.

Great writers are always hard to slot, and Sheldon/Tiptree/Racoona was a great writer, no matter what anyone (including her) may say. And she wrote a number of her best and most mature stories as Alice or Racoona Sheldon, not Tiptree. It's a rank oversimplification to say she only wrote well as Tiptree. And it's impossible to say whether the painful contradictions in her nature held her back--or gave her the inspiration to write some of the most piercingly, frighteningly insightful science fiction ever created. And that's the same thing as saying some of the most insightful FICTION ever created.

The article makes it sound like her life was one long unrewarding misery--a melancholy soul she was, but she had some grand adventures, wrote more brilliant short stories than many far more lauded authors, and achieved an exceptional level of self-understanding--more than most of the people who have written about her, I think.

And I think the article should have mentioned that her husband was sinking into irreversible dementia when she finally actualized their suicide pact. It's not a choice I'd make, but it's not one I'd care to pass judgment on either. One of her last stories ("Backward, Turn Backward) eerily anticipates this final twist in the story of her life--and it's a small masterpiece of brutally honest self-revelation. I couldn't get it out of my head for weeks afterward. She wrote nothing better as Tiptree--nor is her dark masterpiece "The Screwfly Solution" any less impressive for having been written under the name Racoona Sheldon.

I'm a heterosexual male, and reading her fiction taught me as much about myself as any writer I can name. Because we all live between categories, and we are all uncomfortable in our own skins. Whether we like it or not. Could she have been happier? Yes. Could she have been more creative and prolific? Possibly. Could she have been both? Unlikely. That may be unfair. So's life. But it's also very sweet. No writer ever expressed that more powerfully than Alice Sheldon, in all her guises. There have been better writers, but I've yet to find a more honest one.