James Tiptree, Jr., burst onto the science fiction scene in the late 1960s with a series of hard-edged, provocative stories. He redefined the genre with such classics as Houston, Houston, Do You Read? and The Women Men Don't See. For nearly ten years he wrote and carried on intimate correspondences with other writers--Philip K. Dick, Harlan Ellison, and Ursula K. Le Guin, though none of them knew his true identity. Then the cover was blown on his alter ego: "he" was actually a sixty-one-year-old woman named Alice Bradley Sheldon. A feminist, she took a male name as a joke--and found the voice to write her stories. Based on extensive research, exclusive interviews, and full access to Alice Sheldon's papers, Julie Phillips has penned a biography of a profoundly original writer and a woman far ahead of her time.Julie Phillips is a journalist who has written on film, books, feminism, and cultural politics. James Tiptree, Jr. is her first book. She lives in Amsterdam, Holland.Winner of the National Book Critics Circle AwardWinner of the Locus AwardFinalist for the Hugo AwardShortlisted for the British Fantasy Society AwardA New York Times Book Review Notable Book of of the YearA Washington Post Best Book of the YearA Times Literary Supplement Best Book of the YearOne of Booklist's Top 10 Women's History BooksOne of Publishers Weekly's 100 Best Books of the YearAn American Library Association Notable Book for AdultsRecipient of a Special Recognition Award by the James Tiptree, Jr. Award Jury James Tiptree, Jr., burst onto the science fiction scene in the late 1960s with a series of hard-edged, provocative stories. He redefined the genre with such classics as Houston, Houston, Do You Read? and The Women Men Don't See. For nearly ten years he wrote and carried on intimate correspondences with other writers—Philip K. Dick, Harlan Ellison, and Ursula K. Le Guin, though none of them knew his true identity. Then the cover was blown on his alter ego: "he" was actually a sixty-one-year-old woman named Alice Bradley Sheldon. A feminist, she took a male name as a joke—and found the voice to write her stories. Based on extensive research, exclusive interviews, and full access to Alice Sheldon's papers, Julie Phillips has penned a biography of a profoundly original writer and a woman far ahead of her time."If it is getting more and more difficult to tell scholarly biographies from mass-market ones, there nevertheless remain examples that hold great promise for literary biography. Take Julie Phillips's James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon, which came out last year from St. Martin's. Not only has Phillips, a journalist, offered vigorous citations for her sources, including specific dates for letters, but she has chosen a subject where it is almost inconceivable to consider the writer apart from the writings . . . Phillips has carefully sifted through the public record,, as well as gone out of her way to interview many of the people who talked with Tiptree, and the magic combo clarifies any quibbles scholars and loved ones might have. Thus we have accountability and transparency . . . We get a strong sense of Sheldon's feminism through historical and anecdotal evidence. Phillips presents the political climate of 1947 and Tiptree's letters to friends about the 'woman problem.' If Phillips speculates, she doesn't often let matters linger there. She follows up. In presenting details about Sheldon's sexuality, we are informed that 'she couldn’t have an orgasm through intercourse' and given multiple sources (for example, Tiptree's journal and an unfinished memoir) discussing her sexual wants. In light of her impersonation of a man throughout her writing career, that is a valid line of inquiry. Phillip's book represents the literary biography done right."—Edward Champion, The Chronicle of Higher Education  "In Julie Phillips's engrossing and endlessly revelatory biography, the woman behind the alias is at last allowed to step into the spotlight, emerging as neither a malicious prankster nor a defiant contrarian, but simply as a writer for whom science fiction proved to be the ideal genre to tell her own story . . . [Phillips's] writing achieves its own kind of narrative tension, a spell that obliges even the readers already clued in to Tiptree's secret to turn the book's pages with increasing suspense as they wait for its real-life inhabitants to catch up with them . . . [a] thoughtful and meticulous biography provides both the expert and the novice with a Rosetta stone to the Tiptree catalog — an opportunity to extract from these stories the many layers of personal resonance they once held only for Sheldon herself. And it gives a new generation of readers the chance to prove to Sheldon, who in her final years wrote that she was “trying to become nothing,” just how supremely wrong she was."—Dave Itzkoff, The New York Times Book Review "An incredible life, done elegant justice. Tiptree-Sheldon is one of the century's astonishing figures, somewhere between Katharine Hepburn, Philip K. Dick, and Billy Tipton."—Jonathan Lethem, bestselling author of The Fortress of Solitude "An exemplary biography of a fascinating life—the brilliantly elusive woman who, as a writer, called herself James Tiptree, Jr. Never oversimplifying, never over-interpreting, Julie Phillips illuminates a formidably complex psyche wihout invading it."—Ursula K. Le Guin, Hugo- and National Book Award-winning author of The Dispossessed "The meticulous, emotionally intelligent biography of an extraordinary writer. Alice Sheldon is easily the most intriguing figure in late 20th-century American science fiction. Julie Phillips has given 'Tiptree' the book she deserves."—William Gibson, New York Times bestselling author of Pattern Recognition "A fascinating subject, an engrossing read. Philips provides sharp, insightful portraits of the real Alice Sheldon, the fictional James Tiptree, Jr., and the complicated partnership of their work and lives. This is a biography written with equal parts sympathy, respect, research, and honesty. And a real page-turner, too."—Karen Joy Fowler, New York Times bestselling author of The Jane Austen Book Club "In this deeply thoughtful, rivetingly readable biography of James Tiptree, Jr., Julie Phillips traces the life and work of a woman whose self-presentation in her writing made her seem so much 'like a man' that she confounded our culture's myths of gender and genre, convincing even the most sophisticated readers that 'Tiptree'—in 'real' life a woman named Allie Sheldon—was and had to be 'really' a man. This is a fascinating investigation of a fantastic literary career."—Sandra Gilbert, distinguished scholar and editor of The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women "[James Tiptree, Jr.] documents not only an extraordinary life but all the fault lines of what it meant to be female in the twentieth century. I think this may be the rare case when a biography actually exceeds what I expect from a novel . . . I hope everyone reads this book."—Dorothy Alli
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Julie Phillips is a journalist who has written on film, books, feminism, and cultural politics. James Tiptree, Jr. is her first book. She lives in Amsterdam, Holland.
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