More than Human by Theodore Sturgeon

First published: 1953

Type of work: Fantasy

Themes: Coming-of-age, education, family, and the supernatural

Time of work: World War II through the 1950’s

Recommended Ages: 15-18

Locale: Near a heavily wooded area in the United States

Principal Characters:

• Lone, a reclusive near-idiot whose meeting with an innocent awakens him to his intellectual and psychic capabilities; he becomes the nucleus of the family of misfits
• Janie, a telekinetic, neglected child; she becomes the “mother” of the group who will fight Gerry when he misuses his skills
• Gerry Thompson, an angry, frightened orphan who must overcome a mental block that stops him from realizing his extrasensory powers
• Hip Barrows, a brilliant but disillusioned young scientist who has a nervous breakdown after tangling with Gerry
• Bonnie, and
• Beanie, twin black girls who have the ability to teleport their bodies and are devoted to Gerry
• Baby, a physically disabled, mute child who has superior intelligence and the ability to communicate telepathically with Janie
• Dr. Stern, a strong-willed, large-minded psychiatrist who helps Gerry work through his problems
• Alicia Kew, a neurotic, Puritanical woman who takes in the family because of a long-concealed connection with Lone

The Story

More Than Human focuses on the maturation process as it involves the growth of both individual and group consciousnesses. A group of psychically gifted misfits form a symbiotic family, gradually learning to exercise their powers constructively. Concomitantly, in each of the novel’s three parts, one family member undergoes his own psychological testing and growth. The first section, “The Fabulous Idiot,” concentrates on Lone, a near-autistic adolescent who has grown up on his own. His brief contact with a naive girl awakens him to his humanity and psychic powers. He needs education and becomes attached to a couple from whom he learns to live with others, while from a probing of his own experience he becomes reconciled to his ability to control others’ minds.

Upon leaving the farm, Lone builds a rude shelter in the forest to which are drawn exceptional children. Janie, the telekinetic, neglected daughter of an alcoholic party girl, and Bonnie and Beanie, near-mute black twins who can teleport their bodies to any location, are the first to join this new family. Next, the couple’s malformed infant, Baby, who can process any information fed to him telepathically by Janie, is adopted. A first test of the group’s power comes in response to Lone’s desire to fix the couple’s rattletrap truck, for which Baby invents an antigravity device. They do not know until later that the couple have left the truck and their home.

The next section, “Baby Is Three,” describes Gerry Thompson’s perverse, lightninglike process of self-clarification. The action takes place one afternoon in the office of the psychiatrist, Dr. Stern, whom Gerry has consulted. In his analysis, Gerry recounts the life of the family since the time he, a starving runaway from an orphanage, was enrolled in the group, though he seemed to lack the type of special talents possessed by the others. When Lone is accidentally killed, Gerry takes the children to Alicia Kew’s house. Alicia takes them in because of a previous contact with Lone and strives to rear them respectably.

Under Stern’s probing, it comes out that Gerry has a mental block that arose when he inadvertently read Alicia’s mind. Not only was he traumatized to learn that he was the abandoned son of Alicia and Lone but also his prepubescent consciousness could not handle this psychic contact, and so he had blocked his memory and any awareness of his own powers. In remembering, he realizes why he has killed Alicia: both because he was hurt by her early rejection and because he believed her civilizing of the family was stifling the group’s symbiotic relationship. In a diabolical ending, Gerry makes use of his newfound mind-entering skills to make Stern forget the whole session. The boy leaves, determined to conquer the world.

The last part, “Morality,” is set more than ten years later and opens with Janie releasing the near catatonic Hip Barrows from a mental hospital. She begins nurturing him, helping him regain his memories, many of which she can help him understand. While in the army, Hip had come upon the antigravity device rotting in a field but shortly thereafter suffered a nervous breakdown. Janie explains that Gerry, fearing discovery, had made it appear that Hip had hallucinated his findings and had driven him crazy. Together Janie and Hip confront Gerry, and Hip convinces him that the family, now wracked with internal conflicts, must live by a caring morality to sustain its panpsychic structure. To consolidate this insight, the family takes Hip on as a final member. Though he has no remarkable abilities, he has a special knowledge of the heart that adds the finishing touch to the homo gestalt, human being of the future.

Context

In the post-World War II period, major works of sociology such as William H. Whyte’s The Organization Man (1956), David Riesman’s The Lonely Crowd (1950), and Robert Lindner’s Rebel Without a Cause (1944) drew the parameters of serious discourse around such topics as conformity, rebellion, and adjustment. In these works, the connection between the individual and society was mediated through the family. Particular attention was paid to the dysfunctional family, which might be the juvenile gang that encouraged antisocial behavior or might be, as in Riesman’s view, the family that produced a dependent, weak-willed “outer-directed” character.

Sturgeon’s book may be viewed as an interesting transformation of Riesman’s (and others’) theme. Where the sociologist depicts average people who lack decisiveness and initiative, being exceedingly dependent on the opinion of others, More Than Human depicts a group whose capabilities far exceed the norm and who are still unable to stand alone. Yet Sturgeon departs from the negative conclusions usually drawn from the diagnosis of this type of individual. For him, the weakness becomes a strength in that a group made up of members who need one another’s support becomes more than the sum of its parts.

None of this should be read as suggesting that the book is derivative, for, though Sturgeon has chosen themes of his period, he has made them his own, shaping them over a series of texts. In “Make Room for Me” (1951), for example, three characters, each one overdeveloped in some capacity, either in intellect, creativity, or mechanical skill, pool their abilities to live successfully. Therein the value of symbiotic relations is extolled. In an earlier story, “The Stars Are the Styx” (1950), in which only misfits volunteer to work on an artificial satellite vital for the earth’s progress, the central part outsiders play in human development is again underscored.

Because the book deals with growing up and is centered on the efforts of adolescents to heal bruised psyches and find a harmonious way to live with self and community, it offers special attractions to young adult readers. Although, in one sense, the characters are not ones with which to identify easily because of their possession of superhuman powers; in a deeper sense, since every young adult has special talents and areas of creativity to be discovered and understood, any reader can plot his or her life against that of these extraordinary creations. The readers can see many sides of their own growth mirrored in what is recorded in this evergreen fantasy.