Too goddamned much to expect, I suppose. At least that was not the way he handled it.
Lurton, it seems to me that, with any other successful writer on their list, Scribner’s would have published that book-perhaps with revisions and perhaps not as a juvenile-but they would have published it. But if Mr. Scribner felt that he simply could not publish it, I think the circumstances called for a note, a letter, a measure of polite discussion, from the boss to me…” . a minimum of formal politeness.
I did not receive that minimum. I think Mr. Scribner treated me with extreme rudeness…so I don’t want to work for him. Lurton, I have elaborated this matter because, in several letters lately, you have pointed out that the new juvenile editor at Scribner’s is anxious ‘ ‘to welcome me back.” So I have explained why I am not going back. I have nothing against the lady who now has that department-but the firm is still Mr. Scribner’s. If the action had been taken by Miss Dalgliesh alone — But it was not; when I got tossed out, Mr. Scribner in person had me by the scruff of the neck and took part in the tossing, without even a formal word of regret.
Under the circumstances I’ll take my business farther up the street. Or across the street. But I won’t be kicked twice.
PODKAYNE OF MARS
March 8, 1962: Lurton Blassingame to Robert A. Heiniein
Enjoyed all of Podkayne Fries-except ending. She was such a sweet kid that I hated for you to kill her. That is the Heinlein touch-tell Ginny to beware. It’s a good story.
March 10, 1962: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame
Is Poddy a juvenile? I didn’t think of it as such and I suggest that it violates numerous taboos for the juvenile market. It seems to me that it is what the Swedes call a “cadet” book-upper teenage, plus such adults and juveniles as may enjoy it-and the American trade book market does not recognize such a category. But possibly it might be well to let [Putnam] have this story at once and see what happens.
Lurton, for several years now I have been writing just stories, with no eye on the market, and have been writing them with no criterion save the fixed belief that a story which interests me, and the solution of which satisfies me, will interest and satisfy a sufficient percentage of readers to make the story commercially usable. Maybe I’m wrong about this-maybe I should study the market and try like hell to tailor something which fits the current styles. But it seems to me that, if I am to turn out work of (fairly) permanent value, my own taste (checked by yours and by Ginny’s) is what I must follow. Of course, this may result in my losing the market entirely-but I hope that it will result in better stories than if I tried to compound the “mixture as before.”
I know that the ending of Poddy comes as rather a shock. However, that is the ending that seemed to fit-to me. The story follows a definite progression: a girl child with no -worries at all and a preposterous ambition…then, step by step, she grows up and discovers that the real world is more complex and not nearly as sweet as she had thought…and that the only basic standard for an adult is the welfare of the young.
Oh, I could revise that last chapter to a “happy” ending in about two hours-let Poddy live through it, injured but promised a full recovery and with the implication that she will eventually marry this rich and handsome bloke who can take her with him to the stars…and still give her brat kid brother a comeuppance and his lumps (and it is possible that I will at least consider doing this if no editor will risk publishing it as it is). But I don’t want to do this; I think it would ruin the story-something like revising Romeo and Juliet to let the young lovers “live happily ever after.”
But it took the deaths of Romeo and Juliet to show the families Montague and Capulet what damned fools they were being. Poddy’s death (it seems to me) is similarly indispensable to this story. The true tragedy in this story lies in the character of the mother, the highly successful career woman who wouldn’t take time to raise her own kids-and thereby let her son grow up an infantile monster, no real part of the human race and indifferent to the wellbeing of others…until the death of his sister, under circumstances which lay on him a guilt he can never shake off, gives some prospect that he is now going to grow up.