Better to Have Loved: The Life of Judith Merril

by Judith Merril, Emily Pohl-Weary

Judith Merril was a pioneer of twentieth-century science fiction, a prolific author, and editor. She was also a passionate social and political activist. In fact, her life was a constant adventure within the alternative and experimental worlds of science fiction, left politics, and Canadian literature. Better to Have Loved is illustrated with original art works, covers from classic science fiction magazines, period illustrations, and striking photography.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, Canada, Politics

300 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2002

About the author

Josephine Juliet Grossman

aka Cyril Judd (with C.M. Kornbluth)

Judith Josephine Grossman (Boston, Massachusetts, January 21, 1923 - Toronto, Ontario, September 12, 1997), who took the pen-name Judith Merril about 1945, was an American and then Canadian science fiction writer, editor and political activist.

Although Judith Merril's first paid writing was in other genres, in her first few years of writing published science fiction she wrote her three novels (all but the first in collaboration with C.M. Kornbluth) and some stories. Her roughly four decades in that genre also included writing 26 published short stories, and editing a similar number of anthologies.

Reviews

[Wreade1872 · Rating 2 out of 5]

This... did not work for me. Now I’m not a big biography/autobiography person so take this with a grain of salt. Judith Merril is a very interesting person but i feel like in terms of pure information the wiki entry would probably be a better bet and said information was the only thing of interest i found here.

This is partially an autobiography however with only some sections written by Judy before she died the rest was stitched together by her grand-daughter from various sources such as introductions to books, correspondence etc.
Its quite the frankenstein but i had a really hard time paying attention for large sections.

The use of correspondence is interesting. I remember being quite annoyed with a short biography of H.P.Lovecraft included at the back of a collection of his stories. Knowing that he was a prolific letter writer i thought it a missed opportunity not to include extracts from his letters to give you insights into his life.
However.. the letters included here are.. really boring and i don’t think its the content. I think the very nature of personal letters might just not work in this context, perhaps I’m wrong. In this particular case it certainly did not work. But i digress.

I look forward to reading more of the authors literary output along with continuing to dig through the online sections of the Collection named in her honor.

[Steve Rainwater · Rating 3 out of 5]

Biography of Judith Merril, one of the better know female science fiction writers of the early years.

Merril's story crosses paths with a host other well-known science fiction authors of the early days including Ted Sturgeon, Frederik Phol, Cyril Kornbluth, Walter Miller, Donald Wollheim, Damon Knight, and Isaac Asimov to name just a few whose names turn up in the pages of this book. She was a member of the New York Futurians.

I found it a reasonably fascinating book even though I don't read a lot of biographies. The first half is largely autobiographical material and the latter half largely letters and essays. The material was edited and assembled into chronological form by Merril's granddaughter, Emily Pohl-Weary.

[Jim Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anyone who has ever read a word of science fiction; anyone who ever knew, met, spoke with or was challenged by Judith Merril; anyone who wants to understand a beautiful, difficult, maddening and brilliant woman like Judy; anyone who wants to know fascinating dirt from the heyday of the science fiction world - every single one should buy this book, read it, and tell ten friends to. I am so happy that Judy's grand-daughter Emily achieved the impossible and brought this book to completion.

[Steven · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fascinating and frustrating book - excellent for another take on the NYC SF scene of the 30s and 40s, or what Toronto was like in 1970, but I'm still waiting for the definitive biography of Judith Merril. Where are her daughters, other than as the subject of custody disputes? What about the London SF scene - she alludes to Michael Moorcock, Hilary Bailey and J.G. Ballard, but doesn't have much to say about them.

[Nicholas Whyte]

http://nhw.livejournal.com/502625.html[return][return]"Then some of my (male) friends and compeers began publishing politely laundered autobiographies of their successes and I was snowblinded by the detergent. Here were lists of stories sold, banquets attended, speeches given, editors lunched, even wives married and divorced, with never a shriek of tear or tremor or orgasm, and hardly a belly laugh anywhere... Somebody, I thought, should tell it like it was."[return][return]Well, she certainly did. I remember as a teenager reading with fascination Fred Pohl's memoir, The Way the Future Was, and thinking that at last I had a real insight into the life of a real science fiction writer. I now know that he wasn't telling us the half of it; he, Walter M. Miller, Theodore Sturgeon and Fritz Leiber, as well as being giants in the field, had something more intimate in common too.[return][return]But this is not a kiss and tell book; it's a passionate account of a passionate woman, pulled together from drafts and essays by her granddaughter, several years after her death. I'm afraid I skipped some bits - the correspondence between writers about writing and the weather and how much they liked each other, whether from the 1940s or the 1990s, didn't really grab me, and I also didn't appreciate the format of shifting typefaces.[return][return]There were three chapters though that really came alive: her account of her intense but platonic friendship with Cyril Kornbluth, which coincided with her affair with Leiber (while she was still just about married to Pohl) was a gripping piece of introspective writing; a bit later on, the dramatic account of the shotgun confrontation during a custody dispute between Pohl and Miller, which apparently she could only bring herself to talk about on the record a few days before her death; and, more positively, her account of settling in to Toronto on the wings of resistance to the Vietnam War.[return][return]I also really wish I knew more about her mini-documentaries which filled in the rest of the half-hour for CBC's broadcasts of Doctor Who. The dates aren't given, but it must have been in the mid-1970s glory days of the series, either late Pertwee or early Tom Baker. I wonder if they will ever be seen again?

[Brian Gaston · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are someone (like me) that wants to understand how science fiction got its roots and became popular by understanding the people that wrote it, it doesn't get much better than this. (However, if not, don't bother with this book!)

[Richard Locke Peterson · Rating 5 out of 5]

great autobiography full of anecdotes about science fiction people, many of my favorite writers! I got more understanding of Merril, Fred Pohl, Walter Miller, and one or two unsung authors that Merril admired.