Fallout by Todd Strasser (review)

Alternative history has been largely coopted by steampunk of late, but here Strasser offers a far less fanciful take on the recent past—a what-if reconsideration of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Scott Porter's dad takes the threat of nuclear war seriously, Karen Coats and under the eye of his bemused neighbors, he constructs a bomb shelter under his sons' new bedroom addition. His precaution is justified on the night the sirens blare and he and his family scramble for safety through the trapdoor in the closet floor. Nearby neighbors who know of the shelter race to claim a place, and by the time Mr. Porter manages to shut the hatch, the space and provisions planned for four people must now accommodate eleven. The ensemble drama that follows, interspersed with chapters on the lead-up to the disaster, is gut-wrenchingly credible. The water tank malfunctions; nobody grabbed a watch or a clock in the midnight evacuation, so nobody can judge elapsed time; the first aid kit is woefully inadequate to helping them care for Mrs. Porter, who suffered a severe head injury on her descent into the shelter. And of course, there's ambiguity of leadership, vacillation between crushing boredom and emotional outbursts and threats, the abandonment of modesty, and the persistent fear that survival might be more horrifying than death. This title gains its power not simply from its precise detailing of disaster, but from the nuanced treatment of the entire cast of castaways, whose personal backstories are skillfully intertwined with their current behaviors. Accessible to a range of readers, this could be a provocative classroom read as well as a natural pick for disaster fans.