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Fireworks, wild swans and super-cannons were propelling people mentally Moonwards long before 1969, reveals David Seed. Fireworks, wild swans and super-cannons were propelling people mentally Moonwards long before 1969, reveals David Seed.

The main line of enquiry in this new study of J.D. Salinger is to ask what impact the Second World War had on him and his writing. An established Salinger scholar with a track record of researching...

Taking bearings primarily from 9/11, this chapter examines instances of how nuclear conspiracies are investigated and forestalled. These usually centre around the theft and deployment of nuclear materials or devices. The narratives broadly follow a pattern from the thriller genre of alternating episodes from those conspiracies with those describing how the investigating agencies work. The latter often shed an ironic spotlight on how investigation is delayed by agency rivalry or, as happens in Mary Louise Kelly’s Anonymous Sources, by the “need to know” principle minimizing the flow of information. The conspiracies described are frequently domestic and the narratives reflect the complex legacy of the Cold War.

In contrast to Chapter 3, this section addresses narratives where nuclear detonations actually occur, which by definition implies the failure of the authorities to identify and block conspiracies. Some of the works considered here even open with a nuclear blast, followed by retrospective investigation of its origin. These novels present worst-case scenarios where the prime targets are usually New York, Washington, DC, or other cities, but sometimes infrastructure facilities like dams. The difficulties of describing nuclear detonations are explored, as are the roles of the media and the emergency services in coping with these disasters, which are always presented as attacks on the nation as a whole, whatever their specific targets.

This chapter focuses on the worst of worst-case scenarios: nuclear attacks so extensive that the very survival of the USA as a nation is brought into question. The sheer scale of the action is one of the determining characteristics and the chapter first addresses instances of survivalist writing. Many of the novel titles here are taken from Revelation and biblical prophecy is sometimes applied or debated. Through the works of writers like Robert Gleason or Robert Ferrigno (the Assassin trilogy), different scenarios of reconstruction are described in the aftermath of apocalypse, which is only rarely described as it happens, and which is often dramatized as an ongoing conflict between good and evil.

This essay examines the visual techniques that Fitzgerald applies in the party-scenes in his fiction. It explores the tension between spectatorship and participation throughout and argues that he draws on the resources of the cinema in his fine control of perspective, close-up, and long shots—as well as montage. Although he acquired the reputation of the chronicler of the new generation, the essay argues that Fitzgerald constantly brought out the ironies of parties, particularly their fleeting and theatrical aspects, especially their dependence on material display. Comparisons are drawn with Zelda Fitzgerald's party scenes and with contemporaries such as Carl Van Vechten in order to bring out Fitzgerald's implicitly critical dramatization of sexual motifs.