Book Review: Alas, Babylon, Pat Frank (1959)

4/5 (Good)

Pat Frank (1907-1964) began his writing career working for local papers in northeastern Florida before a stint in The Office of Wartime Information (OWI) during WWII. The popular success of Frank’s three nuclear war-themed novels, that culminated with Alas, Babylon (1959), led him to take on the role as a speechwriter for the 1960 Kennedy campaign and beyond.¹ As Frank was a lifelong Democrat, Alas, Babylon contains a range of 50s political views that manifest anti-communism and align with the small minority within the party interested in Civil Rights. The novel advocates for vigorous anti-Communist ideology at home and abroad and, in case deterrence fails, survival is possible for those who embody American virtues.

The Narrative Vantage Point Amidst the Mushroom Clouds

Alas, Babylon narrows in on the experiences of a diverse range of characters (White, Hispanic, and Black) in Fort Repose, an imaginary town in Northern Florida, after a nuclear attack that devastates all surrounding regions. Government calls for Civil Defense are not taken seriously. How will the community survive isolated from the rest of the nation? Who will emerge from the wreckage and guide the fractured community forward? What are the new values in the wasteland? Can they survive the effects of surrounding fallout?

The main narrative follows Randolph Bragg, a failed politician who lives off occasional law work and the citrus fields of his childhood home. Randy, a mouthpiece for many of Pat Frank’s own views, served Korea before running for office. He’s a firm supporter of anti-communist crusaders who take the bomb seriously. In the era of the Southern Manifesto (1956), Randy bucks the majority of the Southern Democratic party in support of Brown vs. The Board of Education (1954) and advocates a generational integration of classrooms.² Of course, this does not go over well with his voters: “behind his back he was called a food and traitor to his state and race” (10). Living an aimless post-election life before The Day, the nuclear attack soon gives him the opportunity to lead and love.

Other characters include the members of an African American family (Malachi, Missouri, Preacher Henry, Two-Tone) that purchased a portion of the plantation that Randy’s ancestors used to operate. Their agricultural knowledge, bravery, and survival instincts prove vital for the new community. Various Hispanic characters who live in a slum nearby, Pistolville, also interject occasionally in the story. Soon Randy accumulates a small community that will resurrect a New America. In addition to the Henrys, others join forces with Randy including the town librarian who suddenly becomes the source of knowledge (Alice), the family of Randy’s brother Mark (Helen, Peyton, and Ben Franklin), Fort Repose’s doctor (Dan), and Randy’s lover Lib and her family. Occasionally the narrative directly shifts to a few of other, all-white, perspectives.

Randy must overcome various physical and psychological problems created by The Day: the inaction of the Civil Defense representative, the dread that all is lost, the suicide of the mayor and death of the Chief of Police, the effects of fallout and disease, and highway robbers.

A New Morality in the Wasteland?

Post-apocalyptic stories often posit the emergence of a new landscape of moral, racial, and sexual confusion. As Elaine Tyler May points out in Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era (1988, revised edition 2017), “fears of sexual chaos tend to surface during times of crisis and rapid social change.”³ Countless SF stories from the era follow this pattern: a few 50s examples include Sherwood Springer’s “No Land of Nod” (1952), Wallace West’s “Eddie For Short” (1953), Wilson Tucker’s The Long Loud Silence (1952), and Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend (1954). Nuclear war in Alas, Babylon, on the other hand, threatens to subvert contemporary values yet ultimately reaffirms what it means to be American (sans democracy).

Alas, Babylon surprised me with its commentary on race in the American south, and hopes for an integrated future.⁴ Randy’s inability to frame his views with “the moderate Southern quasi-liberal, semi-segregationist double-talk” that would have led to his election leads him directly to political failure. His wartime bonding with a black soldier instead leads him to support Brown vs. The Board of Education (1956): “it was strange that a Negro could be an officer and a gentleman and an equal below Parallel Thirty-eight, but not below the Mason-Dixon Line” (44). But wartime experiences do not equate erase underlying racism. Randy must confronts his own underlying unease and inability to be at easy and hold certain conversations with Henrys who were once his family’s slaves. I found Randy’s confrontation of his own flaws the bravest moments of the novel. Post-bomb America, or at least this isolated fragment of Florida, can move beyond segregated racial hierarchies.

In addition to its reaffirmation of moral imperatives, Alas, Babylon serves as a polemic of preparedness. As David Seed points out, Pat Frank’s background in journalism lends Alas, Babylon a survivalist informational air. He describes the workings of CONELRAD, provides details about the potential transportation chaos caused by For Repose’s location, what foods will collect radiation, and the correct role of the local Civil Defense representative.

Final Thoughts

I enjoyed Alas, Babylon as a 50s example of a survivalist take on nuclear conflict. However, Frank dangerously tangles himself in a series of conflicting positions. Our limited view of the conflict and its effects weakens the horror. Newsclips and brief mentions of suicide or lingering trauma suggest devastation but it infringes indirectly on our main characters.⁵ In addition, Randy’s constant understanding of the new present through the lens of his war experiences serve to routinize the extraordinary. I can’t help but imagine how much more effective it would all be if Randy’s experiences were rendered more intense and traumatic than his experiences in Korea.⁶

Frank, like so many authors of post-apocalyptic fictions who postulate survival, almost yearns for the new manifestation of America exemplified by Fort Repose.⁷ Randy recreates a new and better community. Which leads to the most devastating conundrum–the new Fort Repose does not function as a democracy. Randy finds himself giving orders and waving his gun as a Reserve Officer (151). No one but the criminals mind. While old hierarchies of racial segregations lay in ruins, a new post-democratic benevolent dictatorial figure emerges out of a perpetual state of martial law. The military man will serve as the backbone for the new tomorrow. And it’s implied this system will continue as Fort Repose remains isolated from the surviving portions of the rest of the nation still under governmental control.

Frank’s the narratological choices weaken the overt Civil Rights message. While other tangential characters–Florence and Alice–receive sections from their perspective, the African American characters such as Malachi, vital for everyone’s survival, seem to occupy an untold narrative in parallel. Black characters sacrifice themselves yet remain on the periphery. White characters peer at them from afar. Black characters serve and assist white leaders. White characters might acknowledge and address the unequal nature of the arrangement but the narrative structure of the novel reinforces the inequality. Regardless, Frank imagines a desegregated classroom will appear in the new American South.

Sometimes the flaws in the novels that try to say something are easier to see. At least Alas, Babylon tries.

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Notes

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