For Us, the Living: A Comedy of Customs (Hardcover)

In some ways, this work is something like H.G. Wells When the Sleeper Wakes, with its major plot line of Perry, a normal 1939 engineer, reviving after a car accident in the year 2086. With this as a starting point, much of the book focuses on the changes and events that have occurred during the intervening years. Presented here is a fascinating set of prognostications, from a united Europe (quite different from today’s attempt at unification), to an America that took a brief fling with a religious autocracy. Hitler’s final fate, and the duration of WWII, is eerily foretold. Some of the foreseen advances in technology are startling – advanced cooking methods, personal air-cars, rolling roads, even a primitive form of the internet – some of which have actually come to pass, others seem just as far away as when this was written. A significant (and highly atypical) failure in prediction, though, is that by 2086, man had still not traveled to the moon.

It is very clear that this was some of Heinlein’s earliest attempts at writing, as just about all the above is presented as expository blocks of dialog by one or another of those people who have undertaken the task of bringing Perry up to date, rather than being material presented as part of the story, a trick he later mastered possibly better than any other science fiction writer. For those who have read some of Heinlein’s other works, though, this material, even though it interrupts the story and is presented in large, nearly indigestible blocks, is fascinating. Here we see that Heinlein, in 1938, had already laid out most of the significant events of what would become his ‘Future History’, and several stories he would later write were directly mined from this material, including Beyond this Horizon, “If This Goes On”, “Coventry”, and “The Roads Must Roll”.

The story itself, which really only comprises about fifty pages of this work, deals with several items that would become the major subject material for many of his late-life works: the proper role of government versus private actions, economics, religion, what is love and jealousy, and alternative marriage forms. Perry falls in love with Diana, the person who first aided him, and runs afoul of the customs of the day when he takes a swing at one of Diane’s former partners. His treatment for this infraction allows Heinlein to present many of his views on society and personal interactions. From this it can be seen that his focus on such material in books like Stranger in a Strange Land, Friday, and I Will Fear No Evil was not an aberration, but rather a continuation of thoughts and feelings he had always had, but couldn’t publish during the forties and fifties due to various taboos. This was also probably at least one reason (besides its clumsy technique) why this book could not find a publisher in 1939, as its advocacy of free love and casual nudity would have certainly raised some hackles.

As would always be typical of Heinlein’s work, he presents some ideas that will challenge your own assumptions of how things should and do work, most especially in this work with his presentation on economics, banking, and taxation. Some additional reading from other sources about these economic ideas is recommended, as I think such reading in conjunction with what is presented here will provide a clearer picture of just how the world works today and how things might be modified for the better.

As a novel, this book doesn’t work very well, as it is essentially a short story bulked up with all of Heinlein’s ideas about the future world. But those ideas scintillate and provide a great perspective from which to view all of his other work. Perhaps it is an irony that his first book should end up being his last published, but I for one am glad that I have had this opportunity to read this and see the genesis of so much that I greatly enjoyed.

--- Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)