James Tiptree, Jr: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon.

Phillips, Julie (author).

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Over the course of an abbreviated but prolific 20-year career, the late James Tiptree Jr. earned a well-deserved place in the pantheon of sf with a series of brilliantly original tales featuring a distinctive, apocalyptic flavor. Stories such as “The Girl Who Was Plugged In” and “The Women Men Don’t See” have become staples of sf anthologies and university literature classes. Despite frequently featuring well-rounded female protagonists, Tiptree kept “his” true, female identity as Alice B. Sheldon (1915–87) a closely guarded secret until relatively late in her life. Phillips’ long-overdue biography probes the mystery behind Sheldon’s clandestine lifestyle while mapping out the many adventurous turns in her continuously reinvented identity as she changed roles from graphic artist and CIA agent to psychologist and award-winning author. Beginning with Sheldon’s childhood spent tagging along to Africa with her mother, noted travel writer Mary Bradley, Phillips follows “Alli” from her formative years in a Swiss girls’ school to her years working in a Pentagon subbasement to, finally, her almost whimsical turn as an sf author and eventual, premeditated suicide with her husband. Phillips draws on extensive interviews with surviving relatives and literary colleagues as well as Alli’s revealing letters to write a compelling, sympathetic portrait of one of speculative fiction’s most gifted and fascinating figures.