Zenna Henderson
 Zenna
Henderson (November 1, 1917 – May 11, 1983) was an American elementary
school teacher who wrote a series of fantasy novellas and short stories. She was
born in 1917 in Tucson, Arizona, the daughter of Louis Rudolph Chlarson and
Emily Vernell Rowley. She received a bachelor of arts in education from Arizona
State College in 1940, and taught school in the Tucson area. She also taught in
France and in a Japanese relocation camp during World War II. She married
Richard Harry Henderson in 1943, but they were divorced seven years later.
Henderson was one of the first female science fiction authors, and never used a
male pen name. Henderson's portrayal of strong, capable female protagonists is
not unique in the 1950s and 1960s, but she stands out as one of the most
prominent writers to portray well-adjusted women in positions of power and
authority, such as education, with consistent success.
Most of
Zenna Henderson's stories focus on the theme of being different, and often feature
children or young people. Most are concerned with "The People", humanoid beings
from a faraway planet who are forced to emigrate to (among other places) Earth
when their home world is destroyed in a natural disaster. Scattered mostly
throughout the American Southwest during their landing before 1900, they are set
apart by their desire to preserve their home culture, including their religious
and spiritual beliefs. Their unusual abilities ("Gifts") include telepathy,
telekinesis, prophecy and healing, mostly manipulated through the "Signs and
Persuasions". The stories describe groups of The People, as well as lonely
isolated individuals, most often as they attempt to find communities and remain
distinct in a world that does not understand them. This aspect of individuality
was a common theme in most of Henderson's writing.
Zenna Henderson was one of the first science fiction or fantasy authors to
include openly the subject of religion and its controversies. Though many
religious groups identify with her, the standard reference Contemporary Authors
lists her religion as Methodist, though there is no known record of her being a
member of any Methodist church. She was born and baptized into The Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. But after her marriage, she was no longer a
churchgoing Latter-day Saint, though she never renounced her membership. In an
interview, she stated that she often included religious themes because her
readers, particularly her young readers, liked them. She felt it was good to
offer a word for "Our Sponsor" in her stories. In her later years, she attended
an independent charismatic fellowship.
Beginning with Ararat (1952), Henderson's People stories appeared in magazines
and anthologies, as well as the novelized Pilgrimage: The Book of the People
(1961) and The People: No Different Flesh (1966). Other volumes include The
People Collection (1991) and Ingathering: The Complete People Stories (1995).
Zenna Henderson was an extremely private person, and rarely gave interviews.
Some of 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. An early editorial review commented
that her in-depth treatment of the People's practices indicated a "more intimate
knowledge" than she had publicly admitted.
Zenna Henderson was nominated for a Hugo Award in 1959 for her novelette Captivity, and
remains a favorite author of many science fiction fans worldwide, despite the
fact that her books are long out of print.
By today's standards, the People stories are somewhat sentimental, and
Henderson's 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 sometimes 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
to lose her identity as she unwittingly probes the minds of her co-workers.
Among other themes, Zenna Henderson's call in her stories for racial equality
and understanding is particularly 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. But
some modern reviewers criticize Henderson for a stereotypical characterization
of Hispanics (e.g., Severeid Swanson in "Wilderness"), while failing to notice
the positive treatment of Hispanics in the same stories which they criticize.
Only one minor character in Henderson's fiction is overtly identified as a
Native American, despite the American Southwest locale of so many of her
stories. The paucity of racial diversity in Henderson's stories is typical of
her generation of writers. Even today, Cochise County, Arizona, where Henderson
was buried, is fairly ethnically homogeneous, with few Native Americans or other
non-Hispanic ethnic minorities.
In 1972, Henderson's story "Pottage" was made into an ABC-TV Movie, "The
People", starring William Shatner, Kim Darby and Diane Varsi. Many of her fans
believe that her People books also influenced the writing of Alexander Key,
particularly Escape to Witch Mountain, which was later made into a Disney film.
Zenna Henderson died of cancer in 1983 in Tucson, Arizona, and was buried in
Pioneer Cemetery, St. David, Arizona.
Selected Bibliography
Novels
- Pilgrimage: The Book of the People (1961)
Collections
- The Anything Box (1965)
- The People: No Different Flesh (1967)
- Holding Wonder (1971)
- Ingathering: The Complete People Stories (1995) with
Mark L. Olson and Priscilla Olson
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