As I suspected, the biography supports my impression of Piper as a kind of Walter Mitty personality. Piper knew a lot about firearms and other antique weapons, he read a lot of books, and he probably had to deal with lowlifes as a night watchman on a railroad. But he lived largely in his head compared to the circle of friends with "hard pasts" he had in the early 1950's. (Cryonicist Jerry Leaf comes to mind as a similar sort of character who claimed he had a history of "wet work," or so I've heard):
Carr thinks that if Piper, born in 1904, hadn't committed suicide in 1964, he might have become financially successful in the later 1960's, along with some other highly regarded authors, as the market started to pay more for science fiction stories. I doubt Piper would have lasted that long for health reasons, given his poverty, his inability to save money from sales of his writings, his heavy drinking, his smoking and his bad diet. So much for Piper's example as the "self-reliant man" he celebrated in his published fantasy life.
Robert Heinlein, by contrast, also grew up poor, but he had a supportive marriage with his third wife Virginia, he planned his literary career towards making more money, he probably lived frugally, and he probably also had a financial floor beneath him if he continued to draw his disability pension for his service in the U.S. Navy, cut short by tuberculosis, and got health care from the Veterans' Affairs system. Basically Heinlein had more going for him than Piper. Given their similar world views, and their common editorial relationship with Astounding's John W. Campbell, they could have organically become close friends.
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