For Us, The Living: A Comedy of Customs
Discovery of Heinlein's lost first novel
Narrative Synopsis
In 1939, naval aviator Perry Nelson crashes his automobile and awakens in the year 2086. He discovers a utopian agrarian technocracy governed by social credit economics, total individual privacy, sexual frankness, and minimal central bureaucracy, functioning as Heinlein's philosophical manifesto before publishing science fiction.
A man's personal life is his own kingdom, inside which no government has the right to step.
Notable Passage
Historical & Editorial Context
Believed destroyed by Heinlein; a surviving copy was discovered in 2002 by scholar Robert James and published posthumously.