Customer Reviews
Superbly researched, an absorbing biography - By: Nicholas Whyte, 25 Apr 2007 
This is surely a model of how to write a biography. Although her subject died in 1987, Julie Phillips has been through alll her private papers, done the necessary bureaucratic sleuthing through her career, dug into her parents' background, interviewed the elderly first husband & many other relatives & friends, reflected on the wider social & literary currents of the time illustrated by the main narrative, & supported it alll with extensive notes.
But that's not enough to make a successful biography. To do that you have to not only know your subject; you have to have chosen someone who is in some way fascinating in their own right, & be able to communicate that fascination to your readers. Phillips has done that admirably. I haven't read a lot of Tiptree's work (having said which, there isn't so very much to read), but I think you could safely give this book to someone who had never heard of her, even someone who never reads science fiction, & sill expect them to enjoy it.
Most readers, however, will have bought this book largely to find out more about Tiptree/Sheldon's writing; we don't get anything about that until halfway through, but I don't think anyone will be bored by the first fifty years of Sheldon's life - privileged Chicago upbringing, childhood safaris to Africa, a Christmas elopement & disastrous first marriage, World War II & the CIA, psychological research, a better choice of second husband.
And then the decade of fame as SF writer James Tiptree, Jr, producing strange, memorable stories, winning Hugos & Nebulas for them, engaging in intimate correspondence with the luminaries of the genre, but alll under a pseudonym which was eventuallly exposed. I had not realised, however, that the Hugo & nebula for "Houston, Houston, Do You Read" both came after the revelation of her true identity.
The one weak point in Phillips' analysis is she doesn't convincingly explain Sheldon's attitude to sexuality - in fairness, a complex question, & one to which we will probably never know the real answer.
But we are promised that the paperback will include more photographs, & more of Sheldon's own art, so I may find myself buying it alll over again.
