Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank

At some point, I heard about Alas, Babylon as a follow-up to all the people who wanted more apocalyptic drama after the fervor of The Handmaid's Tale and its television revival died down. I recommended it to my book club and the next thing I knew we were reading a Cold War exemplum about nuclear holocaust just as one unpredictable world leader was leading a Twitter rampage against another unpredictable world leader and I was posting apologetic messages to our Facebook group about how I could never have anticipated just how much the book was resonate with us.

Anyway.

It was a pretty good read. I think I took away a number of disaster preparedness lessons from it.  Number one: I am not prepared for an actual disaster. Number two: If Next to Nowhere is not directly impacted by a disaster, the area is probably okay in terms of natural resources (water and food), but is not okay in terms of a communication plan.  Number three:  Maybe we do need a gun in the house, if only as an option for suicide in a real disaster. Number four: If there is a nuclear explosion, don't look directly at it unless you want damaged eyes. Number five: Times have certainly changed in terms of trust in government. The people in this novel really and truly believed that the government would come and save them at some point. I'm pretty sure that if an actual disaster struck me right here and right now, I'd figure we were on our own.

Anyway, many people in my book club said this was an optimistic take on the impact of nuclear war and I guess that it could be read that way.  For the characters we followed, it honestly could not have turned out any better. The on his way to becoming a drunk guy finds meaning in his life, couples continue to get married, have kids (in a nuclear war! - WTF? seriously, people, this biological urge to procreate has clearly skipped me entirely), and the community adapts.  Old hierarchies are adapted to the new realities and, at least for our main characters, life is not actually that bad.  I pondered whether or not it was purposeful government propaganda (copyright 1959 - it's not too out of line, right?).

Or you could read it as morality tale about how humans destroy everything they touch and we can never have a civilization that won't attempt to annihilate another civilization.

I'll leave it to you to determine how I read the situation.