Pat Frank's Alas, Babylon

Pat Frank, also known as Harry Hart Frank, was born May 5th, 1908 in Chicago, Illinois (Deutsch). Frank began writing in the 1940s about the effects of nuclear war and radiation. He is most famous for his novel Alas, Babylon, a story about surviving a nuclear attack on the United States of America from Russia. Pat worked for the government as well as served during the Korean war. Throughout his books the reader can note his experiences with the government. For instance, during the period he worked with the military as a correspondent nuclear war became one of the biggest fears of this time period influencing his stories. Frank eventually moved to Tangerine, Florida where a nearby town “Mount Dora” became the inspiration for the town “Fort Repose”

The Cold War inspired this time period and especially this book. Through fear of the Soviet Union dropping atomic bombs on the United States Pat Frank became inspired to write his most popular novel about a town learning to survive this tragedy. Writers during this time period used their stories to point out the paradoxes, ironies, and fears of the world in this day and age. In Pat Frank's novel Alas, Babylon the fear of a nuclear war eventually became reality, which during that time period was always a possibility. Throughout the entire novel the reader can relate real life occurrences in the book during the years the novel was

Although Brin is reading the novel as though it truly happened and should be more about during than after his overall opinion was satisfying. He claims Frank did not show the true flooding of poverty if nuclear war were to happen, which is true but he shows this in another way throughout the novel. Brin talks about remembering atomic bomb drill warnings in school. For nuclear war was a true fear during this time period, which is clearly seen throughout this novel. “...we school kids pictured a burning flash whenever teacher sprang another surprise duck-and- cover drill, sending pupils diving under desks with the chilling command drop!” (Brin 1). Although he contradicted himself at time over the fact that Frank did not go into enough detail over what would truly happen, but more of how society would react at this point in time. As a reader overall agreement can be made through his opinions of Alas,