Zenna Henderson
Zenna Chlarson Henderson was born November 1, 1917 and died May 11, 1983 in Tucson, Arizona. She was a Mormon school teacher who wrote a series of fantasy novellas and short stories.
She was one of the first female science fiction authors, and never used a male pen name.
Most of her stories concerned "The People", humanoid beings from a faraway planet who are forced to emigrate to (among other places) Earth when their homeworld is destroyed in a natural disaster. They are set apart by their extreme psychic abilities as well as their desire to preserve their home culture, including their religious and spiritual beliefs. Henderson was the first science fiction or fantasy author to include openly the subject of religion and its controversies. Henderson's portrayal of strong, capable female protagonists is not unique in SF of the 50's and 60's, but she stands out as one of the most prominent writers to portray well-adjusted women in positions of power and authority with consistent success.
Her People stories are somewhat sentimental, and her personal worldview may have been closer to the bitter, angry tone found in her non-People short stories, collected in two volumes, The Anything Box and Holding Wonder. Decades before Stephen King, Henderson's portrayal of her students, her fellow teachers, and school staff was merciless in its stark honesty. She touches on mental illness in several tales, including obsessive-compulsive disorder in "Swept and Garnished", and agoraphobia in "Incident After". In "One Of Them", a woman's latent telepathic powers cause her actually to lose her identity as she unwittingly probes the minds of her co-workers. The idea that telepathic contact would cause a loss or merging of identity is almost unique, appearing in only one other story, Murray Leinster's "The Leader" (published in Astounding, February 1960).
Henderson was an extremely private person. In one of her rare interviews, she stated that she often included religious themes because her readers, particularly her young readers, liked them. The best qualities of her writing are her inclusion of alluring throwaway details, showing how casual the People are about their abilities, and her talent for conveying visceral emotion.
Some modern reviewers accuse Ms Henderson of racism. These reviewers note the following characteristics:
- There are no African Americans in any of her stories.
- Despite the American Southwest locale of virtually all the stories, only one Native American is ever seen, and he is a walk-on.
- Most of her Hispanics are offensive caricatures, particularly the revolting Severeid Swanson of "Wilderness".
- Her only depiction of Jews are the fat, loudmouthed, obnoxious Jewish couple in "Sharing Time".
Other reviewers call attention to Henderson's call in the text of her stories for racial equality, and suggest that the orientation of her stories towards the nearly exclusively white middle class readers of science fiction in the 40's and 50's is unsurprising, and the unfortunate portrayals of others are typical of her generation. This theme is particlarly well expressed in the short story "The Closest School", where a xenophobic school board president reaches outside himself to admit a gentle little girl who happens to be a furry, purple 14-eyed alien.
In 1972, Henderson's story "Pottage" was made into an ABC-TV Movie, "The People", starring William Shatner, Kim Darby and Diane Varsi.
Bibliography
- Ingathering: The Complete People Stories of Zenna Henderson (ISBN 0915368587)
