If a human baby was raised by aliens, completely cut off from humanity at large what would he become? If you then introduced that same man back into the world would he be able to handle it? That's the situation that Heinlein based this book on when he got the idea to write about a Martian named Smith. He wanted to create a story where he could take an outside look at what he termed as the two biggest sacred cows we have; sex and religion. And man, does he have fun with it!
It's hard to overestimate the impact this book had back in the 60's. It became something of a counter-culture bible. It even inspired an actual church. Heinlein has openly said that he wrote the book to provoke people to ask questions.
This book features one of my favorite Heinlein characters, Jubal Harshaw. Jubal is an old man who is some combination of writer, doctor, lawyer and rebel. Several passages of 'Stranger' feature long conversations with him as he tries to explain something to Smith. One passage gets to the heart of agnosticism, another (very touching) one is in praise of Romantic sculpture.
'Stranger' is an important book and well worth reading but it's not one of my favorites. The portions that deal with sex aren't really convincing, especially since they seem to require an almost superhuman lack of jealousy. In fact, they derive from Smith's Martian upbringing, so maybe the better term is 'extra' human. In any case I'd need some convincing that mere mortals could live up to the terms.
When Heinlein originally gave the book to his publisher they had him cut it by some 60,000 words. After his death in 1988 his widow found the original version and decided to publish that one as well. I first read the edited version in my teens and picked up the longer one in the 90's. For this project I went back to the original since that was the one they rewarded. I prefer the longer one.
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