Methuselah's Children (1958)
By Robert Heinlein
Eugenics; Inherited traits; Science fiction
The Howard's families, gifted with longevity through generations of eugenic experimentation, flee the galaxy to avoid persecution and death.
For hundreds of years, the Howard Families have been harboring a secret: they live extraordinarily long lives. In the 1880s, a rich American fearful of his impending death established a foundation whose sole purpose was to discover how to perpetuate life; unsure of how to produce long-lived individuals except through heredity, the board members of the Howard Foundation arranged marriages between individuals whose ancestry would indicate some inherited traits for longevity. Now, in 2125, the Families number one hundred-thousand members, each of whose life spans several ordinary generations. The Families have masqueraded as “normal” people through the years: changing their identities periodically, using biomedical techniques to arrest the appearance of aging. When some members of the Families become tired of the masquerade, they hold a vote and decide that a small number should test the waters of public opinion by revealing their secret. Once this occurs, animosity toward the Families grows to a fevered pitch; people refuse to believe that their longevity is the result of concerted breeding efforts and inherited genes, and demand that the Families reveal their secrets. When the government issues warrants for the known Families members, the rest go into hiding. To avoid torture and certain genocide, their leaders hijack an interstellar ship, load the sequestered Family members onto it, and proceed to search others galaxies for a new planet to call home. Once in space, however, the Families begin to realize that their troubles on Earth might just be preferable to the unknown danger of outer space.
This novel provides an unusual perspective on issues of heredity and genetic variability; Heinlein wrote this work during a critical moment in genetics studies, and the text reflects a fascination with the early articulations of the concept of “genes” while relying heavily on previous notions of heredity. The Howard Foundation, for instance, essentially embarks on a eugenics project, selecting for longevity in married couples. Their project parallels the theoretical eugenics projects imagined by Francis Galton, in which intelligence (rather than longevity) becomes the trait by which couples are united. The Families represent both the advantages and disadvantages to this method of breeding: while they become progressively longer-lived through generations of intermarriage, they also produce an unusually high number of children with physical and intellectual abnormalities. While they are the produce of genetic manipulations, the Families resist direct genetic engineering; on the Little People’s planet, they are offered more efficient forms through genetic manipulation, yet the majority of the Families’ members recoil from such prospects. To them, the engineered children are as inhuman as the “normal” humans imagine the Families to be. These children pose no threat to the Families, because the Families return to Earth before many have been engineered; had these mutant children proliferated, they too might have been seen as traitors to humanity. Because the Families threaten the rest of humanity merely by existing, the “normal” humans feel justified in engaging in unethical behaviors – torture or extermination – to eliminate the potential danger of the genetically “superior”.
Evaluation: Heinlein produces an engaging vision of the future without excessive jargon or gimmicks. The well-developed characters and exciting pace of the plot reflect Heinlein’s mastery of the tenets of science fiction.
– Natalie Champ