I finished reading William H. Patterson’s large new biography of Robert A. Heinlein yesterday. I knew I wanted to write something about it, but I gave it a day to simmer. Frankly, I’m still not sure what to say other than I was positively impressed.
Basically, Patterson achieved the remarkable goal of demythologizing the man without gutting him.
I’ve read any number of biographies of famous (and infamous) personalities which tended either to be hagiographic (and therefore virtually useless as any kind of honest reference) or a brutal airing of personal failings in some sort of attempt to drag the subject down to “our level” and resulting in a catalogue of reasons to think ill of the person under study. …