The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag

A creepy novella by Robert A. Heinlein, also the title of an anthology of shorter Heinlein works:

1. The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag
2. The Man Who Travelled in Elephants
3. "All You Zombies" (The quotation marks are in the title; hassle the author.)
4. They
5. Our Fair City
6. "And He Built a Crooked House" (Ditto on the quotation marks.)

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Spoilers



The conceit of the story is that our universe was created by a young god as an entry in a competition; "Jonathan Hoag" is the cover identity of an older god, one of the judges. The universe is judged good, except for the inclusion of some evil demonic beings called The Sons of the Bird, who end up tormenting our protagonist and his lovely wife. Hoag removes The Sons of the Bird. It's really a suspense/horror thing, one of Heinlein's few departures from science fiction under his own name.