Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank

    Ah, now I get the indescribable joy of telling you about one of my most favorite fiction writers and his books. Pat Frank is not a real person, or rather, that is to say it is not a real name. The real name of this incredible writer is Harry Hart, mild-mannered former war correspondent for the Jacksonville Journal. Having a pen name is almost like being a superhero, in that you have an alter ego through whom you can say whatever you feel needs to be said. When I grow up, I want to have a pen name, but that is a different story for a different time. Back to the book.

    This book is all about the triumph of the human spirit in the face of adversity, something which I may admire more than I agree with, but nevertheless it makes for great storytelling. The story starts out with Mark, an Air Force officer, sending his family to live with his brother Randy in Fort Repose, Florida because war with Russia is fast approaching. We must remember that this story is written during the time of the Cuban missile crisis at the height of the cold war, so nuclear war with Russia was not that hard to imagine at the time. Anyway, Randy is sort of a failed politician and somewhat of a drunk, but he takes his brother seriously and starts making the necessary preparations to survive a nuclear holocaust. In the process of doing so he warns his friends which happens to be about half the town since this is one of those backwater nothing towns you whiz by on the highway when you're on a road trip. So Randy picks up Mark's wife and kids at the airport and the next day nuclear war breaks out and all the major cities are destroyed, including D.C. and most of Florida. This turn of events makes Fort Repose its own microcosm because it is cut off entirely from the rest of civilization. Now we all know what this means.....

    Looting time! Chaos reigns supreme for a few days, with looters taking everything they can and vigilante justice taking place all over. The town doctor gets mugged and then drug addicts raid the clinic, the police chief gets killed, and the bank president gets so upset he offs himself. There is nothing better than a nuclear holocaust to kick start some serious chaos in the unaffected areas. You gotta love that.

    So after a while all of Randy's friends come to stay with them on River Road, and this is where we first start to see the new Randy. He is starting to step up to the challenge of leading these people and making sure they survive. They start to find the amenities they need; Randy gets fresh water, they have a farm where they can grow things, and the doctor starts to practice again with whatever medicine he can get ahold of. Order seems to be maintained within the micro community, in stark contrast to the world outside.

    There really isn't that much infighting among the group, with the exception of an incident where a guy brought back some contaminated jewelry and people started getting sick, so they bury the jewelry along with the guy, but the townspeople won't help. Randy gets a gun and tells them they can either help bury the guy or join the guy getting buried, so they decide to help. I think this was important too, because it showed that Randy was willing to make unpopular decisions as leader in order to insure the safety of the group.

    After that we move on to threats from the uncivilized outside world, namely a group of bandits who decide to make a raid. The doctor, who perpetually is in the wrong place at the wrong time, gets beat up again, this time to the point that he almost dies. Also, one of the neighbors dies too. Randy forms a group and they go hunt down the bandits and kill all of them by various means. Things of this nature go on for awhile, including lack of basic goods by the town, all solved in the end, until one day a helicopter lands in the town and Paul Hart gets out. This is their first contact with the outside world in awhile, besides a few random radio broadcasts here and there, so naturally they bombard him with questions. Paul lets them know that the rest of the country is struggling to survive as they are, and they are trying to form major cities again, offering to take them to one of the new settlements. After some deliberation they all decide to stay where they are in their new town. One personal piece of bad news that Paul brings is that Randy's brother, Mark, has been killed. This is only half bad news because his wife fell in love with the doctor anyway, so now they can get married. The story ends with them deciding to stick it out where they are.

    I know this sounds like every other story about the failure finally being given the chance to make something of himself and doing so, and it is, but the writing in this case is what saves the book. The interpersonal relationships, the dialogue between characters, the symbolism in the book, they all provide ample reason to give this book a chance. Besides, it better literature than that comic book you were trying to pass off as a novel to your friends anyway.