In the novel, Alas, Babylon, (excerpted below) written in 1959, Pat Frank describes in vivid detail what many Americans living in the Atomic Age feared the most, the destruction of their world as a result of a nuclear holocaust. Born Harry Hart Frank in 1908, he dedicated his life to writing. During World War II he served as a bureau chief and a war correspondent in Europe. After the war, he returned to the United States and became a novelist drawing on his experiences in world affairs. As a result, much of his work focused on the growing tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union and the increasing fears of a nuclear holocaust and its aftermath. As a result of his work and first-hand experiences in World War II and Korea, he worked in the early 1960's as a consultant for both the National Aeronautics and Space Council as well as the Department of Defense before his death in 1964.
By 1959 the atomic age, and the constant fear that accompanied it, were fully embedded in American culture. Both the Soviets and the Americans were developing and accumulating large stockpiles of nuclear weapons and the rhetoric and actions of both nations showed no intention of changing course. The launch of the Soviet satellite Sputnik on October 17, 1957 increased the fears amongst Americans of an impending nuclear attack and how it might come. Frank used the idea of an atomic attack to paint a visual picture of what might happen should these fears become a reality. After the publication of his fictional account of nuclear holocaust in Alas, Babylon, Frank wrote a non-fictional book called How to Survive the H-Bomb and Why, a very real concern for many American citizens.
Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank 1959
At first Randy thought someone was shaking the couch. Graf, nestled under his arm, whined and slipped to the floor. Randy opened his eyes and elevated himself on his elbow. He felt stiff and grimy from sleeping in his clothes. Except for the daschund, tail and ears at attention, the room was empty. Again the couch shook. The world outside still slept, but he discerned movement in the room. His fishing rods, hanging by their tips from a length of pegboard, inexplicably swayed in rhythm. He had heard such phenomena accompanied earthquakes, but there had never been an earthquake in Florida. Graf lifted his nose and howled.
Then the sound came, a long, deep, powerful rumble increasing in crescendo until the windows rattled, cups danced in their saucers, and the bar glasses rubbed rims and tinkled in terror. The sound slowly ebbed, then boomed to a fiercer climax, closer.
Randy found himself on his feet, throat dry, heart pounding. This was not the season for thunder, nor were storms forecast. Nor was this thunder. He stepped out onto the upstairs porch. To his left, in the east, an orange glow heralded the sun. In the south, across the Timucuan and beyond the horizon, a similar glow slowly faded. His sense refused to accept a sun rising and a sun setting. For perhaps a minute the spectacle numbed reaction. What had jolted Randy from sleep-he would not learn all the facts for a long, a very long time after-were two nuclear explosions, both in the megaton range, the warheads of missiles lobbed in by submarines. The first obliterated the SAC base at Homestead, and incidentally sank and returned to the sea a considerable area of Florida's tip. Ground Zero of the second missile was Miami's International Airport, not far from the heart of the city. Randy's couch had been shaken by shock waves transmitted through the earth, which travel faster than through the air, so he had been awake when the blast and sound arrived a little later. Gazing at the glow to the south, Randy was witnessing, from a distance of almost two hundred miles, the incineration of a million people.
1. How did the fictional account of a nuclear attack in the excerpt illustrate the fears of many Americans in the late 1950s and early 60s?
2. How do you think a fictional account of such an event would have effected those who read it in 1959?
3. Describe the effects of world events of the period that would have increased have made some Americans believe Frank's events could become a reality.
References
Alas, Babylon: Context. (n.d.).Sparknotes. Retrieved from http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/alas/context.htm
Discover Author: Pat Frank. (n.d.). Harper Collins Publisher. Retrieved from http://www.harpercollins.com/cr-101992/pat-frank
Engel, J. A., Lawrence, M. A., & Preston, A. (Eds.). (2014). America in the world: A history in documents from the war with Spain to the war on terror. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.