I’m trying to remeber the name of a book I read in high school in the mid 1970’s. I thought Armeggedan was in the title but I may be wrong. It takes place in florida after a nuclear war that takes out the US government as we know it now and tells the story of survival abd rebuilding. Can anyone help???
Alas, Babylon maybe?
Alas, Babylon?
I’ve moved the thread to our Cafe Society where we look for books, movies, ets.
I"ve also titled the thread to make more sense rather than ???
samclem, MOderaator
I doubt it could be Alas, Babylon, because that book was written in the late 50’s or very early 60’s. And the US gov’t wasn’t taken out completely, although D.C. was nuked. There was a Cabinet officer, way down the line of succession, who became, interestingly enough, the first female President.
But it did take place in Florida. A really good book.
I read it it in the 2000’s so I don’t think it’s unreasonable to think someone read it in the 70’s.
Alas, Babylon tells of a US government loss at the local level. Communication was poor higher up – battery powered radios gradually became inoperative and most of society’s infrastructure was destroyed – power generation, telephones, transportation. The story describes a vigilante government formed on a small scale. The little they knew about higher levels was the military jets that frequently passed by at very high altitudes. I’d say the OP’s description matches that book exactly.
To jump on the bandwagon, Alas Babylon which is immediately visible on my bookshelf, was the first thing to come to my mind.
Alas, Babylon even without having to read the OP…just the thread title.
My immediate response was also Alas, Babylon. I’d be very surprised if the OP were thinking of anything else. While this novel was originally published in 1959, it has been reprinted a number of times since then. Google Books indicates that there was a 1976 paperback edition, which fits the time period the OP remembers.
Heck, that even works with the original thread title, “???”, which I nominate for Descriptive Title of The Year.
Farnham’s Freehold by Heinlein.
I had a mind to get this book for years, and had tried a few bookstores and tried ordering into my own store to no avail. Then one day I was browsing through the selection of secondhands in my brother’s store and there it was. Great book, one of my favourites on that theme.
I’ve just finished reading Alas Babylon coincedentally enough, it definitely is a good book and worth a read but you have to keep in mind the era it was written in. The author appears to be trying to fairly liberal in his attitudes but some of it is still a little eye-browing raising to the modern sensibilities.
The part that sticks out in my mind, the author shows society reverting to traditional division of labour along male and female lines but makes it clear that they are just as reliant on the women as the men to survive. One young girl is shown being frustrated because she isn’t allowed to do the cool stuff her brother is and wants recognition. To gain recognition and respect she is shown being smart and resourceful enough to resolve a major problem the community was facing (why the fish were no longer biting).
The main character then returns after a trip upriver to find the female members of the household arguing and crying because of the danger the young girl had put herself in, he shakes his head and thinks something along the lines that its clear that women need a man to keep them in line or they just fall to pieces otherwise.
It was as if the author immediately undercut the message he had just portrayed.
Granted that could just be the attitude of the character and not the author but it didn’t come across that way.
Stop that.
Why, Cuddles?
The OP didn’t mention playing bridge, so you’re just muddying the waters.
To make a short story long… I went to a ‘progressive’ high school that had themed English classes. I spent a week in one called Eco-wareness that was pretty cool. Unfortunately my surname is somewhat late in the alphabet. There was an English teacher that nobody liked, so few people registered for her class. TPTB proclaimed that a certain number of students in full classes had to transfer to this woman’s class. To keep it ‘fair’, the ones who registered first would get to stay and the ones that registered last would have to go. And students registered alphabetically be surname. Yeah, that’s fair. :rolleyes:
So I get into this class not of my choosing with the teacher nobody liked. It turned out to be a good thing. We read Alas Babylon. The one anachronism that sticks out for me is the irony Pat Frank pointed out of the silliness of ‘White Only’ and ‘Coloured Only’ drinking fountains. Or course none of us had been born when the book was written, and hadn’t been exposed to those segregation laws. We all thought the people who made those laws were nuts.
Definitely, I appreciate that the author wrote the story in a different time and place but the part I mentioned was really jarring because he immediately undercut the message he had just sent, and in a really clumsy way.
It just seemed completely out of tone with the rest of the story and of the main character.
It may not be worth our time to speculate on which book it might, or might not have been. The OP is the only post fading memory has made.