Introduction to
IF ALL MEN WERE BROTHERS, WOULD YOU LET ONE MARRY YOUR SISTER?:

This will be the shortest introduction in the book. Because, of all the writers in this anthology, the one who truly needs no introduction is Theodore Sturgeon? Well, there's that, certainly. Because nothing anyone could say would prepare the reader for what is to follow, the first Sturgeon story in over three years? It's a valid point. Because each Sturgeon story is a long-awaited experience, no two alike, so why bother gilding the caviar? Okay, I'll accept that.

But none of them happens to be the reason why I am unable to write as beefy an introduction as the others in this book. The reason is simply that Sturgeon saved my life recently. Literally.

In February of 1966 I committed one of those incredible life-blunders that defy explanation or analysis. I entered into a marriage with a woman . . .a person . . .a something whose mind was as alien to me as the mind of a Martian might be. The union was a disaster, a forty-five-day nightmare that left me closer to the edge of the cliff than I had ever been. At the precise moment I thought surely I couldn't retain my grip on the handle of—everything, I received a letter from Ted Sturgeon. It was part of the interchange of letters that resulted in obtaining this story for the anthology, but it was concerned entirely with what was happening to me. It pulled together the sprung wires of my life. It was one of those pieces of honest concern that (if lucky) everyone will clutch onto at a terrible time of helplessness and desperation. It demonstrates the most obvious characteristic of Sturgeon's work—love. (We once talked about that. It became clear to Sturgeon and myself that I knew virtually nothing about love but was totally familiar with hate, while Ted knew almost nothing about hate, yet was completely conversant with love in almost all its manifestations.) I would like, with Ted's permission, to quote from that letter. It will say infinitely more about his work and what motivates him than anything I could attempt. From here down, Sturgeon speaking:

"Dear Harlan: For two days I have not been able to get my mind off your predicament. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that your predicament is on my mind, a sharp-edged crumb of discomfort which won't whisk away or dissolve or fall off, and when I move or think or swallow, it gigs me.

"I suppose the aspect that gigs me the most is 'injustice.' Injustice is not an isolated homogeneous area any more than justice is. A law is a law and is either breached or not, but justice is reciprocal. That such a thing should have happened to you is a greater injustice than if it happened to most representatives of this exploding population.

"I know exactly why, too. It is an injustice because you are on the side of the angels (who, by the way, stand a little silent for you just now). You are in the small company of Good Guys. You are that, not by any process of intellectualization and decision, but reflexively, instantly, from the glands, whether it shows at the checkout in a supermarket where you confront the Birchers, or in a poolroom facing down a famous bully, or in pulling out gut by the hank and reeling it up on the platen of your typewriter.

"There is no lack of love in the world, but there is a profound shortage in places to put it. I don't know why it is, but most people who, like yourself, have an inherent ability to claw their way up the sheerest rock faces around, have little of it or have so equipped themselves with spikes and steel hooks that you can't see it. When it shows in such a man—like it does in you—when it lights him up, it should be revered and cared for. This is the very nub of the injustice done you. It should not happen at all, but if it must happen, it should not happen to you.

"You have cause for many feelings, Harlan: anger, indignation, regret, grief. Theodor Reik, who has done some brilliant anatomizations of love, declares that its ending is in none of these things: if it is, there is a good possibility that some or one or all of them were there all along. It is ended with indifference—really ended with real indifference. This is one of the saddest things I know. And in all my life, I have found one writer, once, who was able to describe the exact moment when it came, and it is therefore the saddest writing I have ever read. I give it to you now in your sadness. The principle behind the gift is called 'counter-irritation.' Read it in good health—eventual. I would like you to know that if it helps and sustains you at all, you have my respect and affection. Yours, T. H. Sturgeon."

Thus ended the letter that helped and sustained me. Enclosed with the letter was #20 of "Twenty Love Poems based on the Spanish of Pablo Neruda," by Christofer Logue. From Songs, Hutchinson & Co., London, 1959. It is this freedom of giving, this ability and anxiousness to meet love and give it freely in all its forms, that makes Sturgeon the mythical creature that he is. Complex, tormented, struggling, blessed by incredible gentleness and, above all, enormously talented, what you have just read is the soul of Theodore Sturgeon. I pray you, go on now to the very best thing to be found in all writers: a sample of the work that motivates the life that is led. And thank you.