During the Golden Age of Science Fiction, there was a slow movement to include female writers in the ranks of published magazines like John W. Campbell's "Astounding." Over the first ten years, the percentage rose to an estimated 10-15%. No one told writer/editor Judith Merril. Graduating from high school at 16, the Bronx-raised writer was raised by a tough single mother who told her "Don't hide your light."
A devoted reader of Science Fiction, Merill became the first female member of the Futurians in New York City. While the group shared radical views and forward-thinking possibilities about the boundaries of relationships, they comprised nearly half of the writers and editors of every Sci-Fi/Pulp publication by the mid-40s. Adopting her daughter's first name and former husband's last name, Judith began her editing career as Judy Zissman in 1946 with the fanzine "Science Fiction." While it failed to publish its second issue, Judith Merill was welcomed as an editor for sports publications and other professional pursuits.
Married to future classic writer/editor Fredrik Pohl until 1952, Merill began writing and submitting stories. Merill and Pohl even founded a new organization, The Hydra Club, to welcome writers and editors who left the Futurians because of their overbearing political views. From 1950 until 1985, Merill was the editor of the favored "Year's Best Science Fiction" annuals. It was Merill who used the quality of this prose to posit that Sci-Fi should no longer be separated from Literature. Merill also signed Harlan Ellison and spurred the New Wave of Sci-Fi in the late Sixties and Seventies.
As a writer, Merill tends to lean heavily in the Hard Sci-Fi direction. However, her prose carries the "majesty" of a chosen storyteller. 1950's "Shadow on the Hearth" deals with a New York housewife whose life is shaken to its foundations by the nearby drop of an atomic bomb. As the housewife in Westchester, Merill infuses the dialogue with emotion and an inner voice that does not swerve into melodrama. The complete abandonment of the daily life of the opening is replaced by characters working out of fear-induced paralysis toward new roles and a modern level of cooperation.
1951's "Survival Ship" is a stunning example of Merill's "majesty" as narrator. As she writes (or reads aloud the story to record,) it is easy to be swept away by the astronauts preparing for takeoff. Merill places you in the position of the world watching "the greatest spaceship ever built" long enough to miss details. Throughout training the travelers were given nicknames and tiny facts for the public to savor. On their way on a fifteen-year mission, we learn that 20 women and 4 men are aboard. The commander reasons "We are hardier, longer-lived, less susceptible to pain and illness, better able to withstand, mentally, the difficulties of life of monotony."
Finally, there is 1952's "Daughters of Earth," a less straightforward space travel short story and a more meditative familial history that would finally find success in 1968. Merill takes complete charge of the female-as-leader role here. First, she tells a long, twisting narrative about a family united by traveling deeper into space. Then, Merill uses "parentheses" to one particular descendant to grasp at the swirl of inner thoughts and emotions about this hundreds of years-long journey. From its Biblical beginnings ("Martha begat Joan, and Joan begat Ariadne. Ariadne lived and died at home on Pluto, but her daughter, Emma, took the long trip out to a distant planet of an alien sun. Emma begat Leah, and Leah begat Carla.") "Daughters" unfolds like a love letter to the past and future Merill may have dreamed of. Unlike "Survival Ship," the details here are almost meant to be lost in translation (how they made a "United Earth" would make a great sidebar.) "Daughters" is a work of intimacy. Like a mother to her daughter, the collected memories point to a new tradition of a space-traveling matriarch able to pioneer a civilization on a vast new frontier and still secretly stare down the next iteration of family and strangely assuage their bubbling fears and doubts by asking, "aren't you afraid?"
NEW MUSIC THIS WEEK
SELENA GOMEZ & BENNY BLANCO - I Said I Love You First [CANDY CANE RED/LP](Interscope/Universal)
Newly engaged Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco make a record that celebrates their being a couple - and not an odd one. Blanco constructs dreamy, sweepy Pop for his bride ("Call Me When You Break Up" with Gracie Abrams) that gives her all the hooks and chances for blissful asides. "I Said I Love You First" may look like another star-powered album (help from FINNEAS and J Balvin too,) but you can tell it is fueled by all the long looks and stolen moments the pair have shared.
MY MORNING JACKET - is [ICEBERG BLUE LP/CD](ATO/Virgin/Universal)
For their 10th album, Jim James and My Morning Jacket trade in their "wigged out" jams for music built on loops. "Time Waited" is their most beautiful single in years. Constructed around a rare piano-led track from pedal steel legend Buddy Emmons, MMJ meditates on the changes that age brings and its sunny chorus celebrates hope. For those wishing for the elder statesmen of Kentucky to bring back their Southern Rock riffage, the band unfurls the 1973-ready "Squid Ink."
JAPANESE BREAKFAST - For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women) [FROSTED LP/CD/CS](Dead Oceans/Secretly/AMPED)
Somewhere between writing her book ("Crying in H Mart") and devouring Thomas Mann's acidic fantasy "The Magic Mountain," Michelle Zauner descended deeper into her songwriting. Always exotic and dreamy, "Melancholy Brunettes" takes on a new feeling from its wordy adventures. "Orlando In Love," already one of the year's best singles, is both unabashedly romantic and sad around the edges. The way she summons the "Melancholy" beast makes all the difference here. Not as spritely as Mitski or as dramatic as Lana Del Rey, "MegaCircuit" holds on to its assonance like it never wants to let go yet it never quite commits that writing this (or any) shuffle could save anyone - much less herself.
