Is history repeating itself?

Aliens Are Coming!

by Meghan McCarthy

My Dad wasn't fooled for a minute. While the rest of the country panicked at the thought of a Martian invasion, Dad sat thrilled by the radio on October 30, 1938 as Orson Welles updated the sci-fi classic "The War of the Worlds." Unlike thousands of others who fled their homes, jammed traffic or prepared for the worst, Dad caught the fact it was just a show.

At least, that's what he claimed.

McCarthy captures the wide-eyed hysteria that accompanied the notorious broadcast, plus we get to see slobbery, tentacled aliens. Yes! With tongue firmly planted in cheek and a retro touch to her brush, she reprints some of the script and depicts what people imagined was happening.

Cut to reality: jammed switchboards and clogged intersections, and a desolate pasture in a New Jersey town called Grovers Mill (in Princeton Township) where the first ship allegedly landed. I've actually seen the water tower people mistook for a "Martian cylinder." I guess it's easy to laugh now, eh?

As she cuts back and forth from fictional to real, McCarthy's palette shifts from rusty Martian reds to black-and-gray tones, as if listeners were extras in a 1930s movie. She stays true to the era and resists the temptation to slide into 1950s B-movie camp.

Beginning and substantial end notes flesh out this fascinating glimpse into how one nutty genius hoodwinked a country.

Karl Rove, are you listening? 

Rating: *\*\*\*\

Comments

[brettdl]

Our son loved this book the first time we read it. It's a good tool for teaching the distinction between fiction and reality.