You ever have that feeling where you wake up and just... forget what you did yesterday? For most of us, it’s a "too many drinks" or "long Tuesday" thing. But for Jonathan Hoag, it's his entire life. He’s a well-dressed, fancy Chicago socialite who realized one night at dinner that he had absolutely no clue what he did for work. Zero. He’s got cash in his pockets, but his 9-to-5 is a total black hole.
And it gets weirder.
Every evening, he finds this nasty, reddish-brown gunk under his fingernails. It looks like dried blood. Honestly, it’s the kind of setup that makes you think you’re in a slasher flick. But this isn't a slasher. It’s a 1942 novella by Robert A. Heinlein, and the truth about the unpleasant profession of Jonathan Hoag is way more "out there" than just being a secret serial killer.
The Mystery of the Thirteenth Floor
Hoag is desperate, so he hires a husband-and-wife detective team, Ted and Cynthia Randall. These two are basically a 1940s power couple—witty, sharp, and totally unprepared for the cosmic horror they’re about to walk into.
Ted follows Hoag into the Acme Building. Simple enough, right? He watches Hoag go up to the thirteenth floor, where he works as a jeweler. The red stuff? Just jeweler’s rouge. Case closed.
Except Cynthia saw something completely different.
While Ted was supposedly in the building, she saw him standing on the street talking to Hoag. When they go back to check the Acme Building together, they find out there is no thirteenth floor. It doesn't exist. The elevator doesn't even have a button for it. This is where the story stops being a noir detective mystery and starts feeling like a Philip K. Dick fever dream before Philip K. Dick was even a thing.
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Who Are the Sons of the Bird?
This is where things get genuinely creepy. Ted starts having these "dreams"—which we all know in sci-fi are never just dreams—where he’s pulled through a mirror into a boardroom. There, he meets these guys called the Sons of the Bird. They look like boring businessmen, but they’re not human. They worship an ancient, cruel deity (The Bird), and they tell Ted to back off.
They basically claim they run the joint.
If you’ve ever felt like the world is just a hollow stage set or that the people in charge are literally monsters behind a mask, Heinlein was tapping into that vibe eighty years ago. The Sons of the Bird represent the "mistakes" of reality. They’re the glitches in the matrix that didn't get patched out.
The Big Reveal: What is Hoag’s Actual Job?
After a lot of mirror-jumping and some pretty tense psychological warfare, the Randalls finally get Hoag under hypnosis to find out the truth. They’re expecting him to be a demon or a ghost.
The reality? He’s an art critic.
Wait, what?
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Yeah, basically, our entire universe—the stars, the dirt, the way coffee tastes, your annoying neighbor—is just a student art project. Some "Artist" in a higher dimension created the Earth as a graduation piece or a homework assignment. Jonathan Hoag is a high-level critic sent from that higher dimension to experience the "art" from the inside and write a review.
Why the profession is "unpleasant"
Think about it. If you’re a professional critic, your job is to find the flaws. Hoag’s daytime activities, the ones he couldn't remember, involved him interacting with the "Sons of the Bird."
It turns out those bird-people were actually a previous draft of the world that the Artist forgot to erase. They’re like a messy smudge on a painting. The "blood" under Hoag’s fingernails? That was their ichor. He was literally scratching away at the mistakes of reality to see if the world was worth keeping.
Imagine having to live inside a mediocre painting for years just to decide if the painter deserves an A or an F. That’s the unpleasant profession of Jonathan Hoag. He has to endure the squalor, the mean-spiritedness of people, and the literal monsters in the mirrors just to file a report.
The Ending That Still Haunts Readers
The story doesn't end with a "happily ever after" where everyone goes back to normal. Hoag tells the Randalls that the world is being "re-edited." He tells them to drive out of the city and never, ever look back.
They drive. They’re scared. Eventually, they can’t help it. They look back.
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They don't see a giant bird or a cosmic explosion. They just see a thick, grey fog where the world used to be. The Artist is literally "painting over" the scene. It’s one of the most unsettling endings in Golden Age sci-fi because it suggests that we only exist as long as the Critic is interested.
Why You Should Care Today
Usually, when we talk about Heinlein, we think of Starship Troopers or Stranger in a Strange Land. We think of rockets and "competent men" doing engineering stuff.
But The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag shows a totally different side of him. It’s weird. It’s metaphysical. It deals with the "Solipsism" theme—the idea that the only thing you can be sure exists is your own mind.
If you're looking for a deep dive into 1940s speculative fiction, here is how you can actually apply the "Hoag Perspective" to your own life:
- Question the "Default" Reality: The story suggests that what we see is often a "finished surface" hiding a lot of messy drafts underneath. Don't take everything at face value.
- Observe Like a Critic: Hoag’s job was to judge the world based on its aesthetics and its soul. It’s a reminder to actually look at the world around you instead of just moving through it.
- The Power of Memory: The horror in this story comes from not knowing oneself. Maintaining a clear sense of identity is the only thing that keeps the "fog" at bay.
Next time you find something weird under your fingernails, maybe don't go to the doctor. Call a detective. Or better yet, just hope the Artist isn't planning on starting a new project anytime soon.
Actionable Insight: If you're a fan of "The Matrix" or "Inception," go back and read the original novella. It’s often collected in books like The Fantasies of Robert A. Heinlein. Seeing where these "reality is a lie" tropes started is a trip. You'll never look at a bathroom mirror the same way again.