Friendly Fallout 1953

Friendly Fallout 1953 is a curious com­bi­nation of fiction and fact, a lit­erary effort to bring together, under one cover, the topics of nuclear weapons, the testing that occurred in the State of Nevada, and the fic­tion­alized stories of those involved.

Does it work? Yes, even if the reader does not first read the Author’s Notes (a cheat sheet for back­ground infor­mation re the char­acters) before beginning the stories. It not only works, it works well. The science told throughout the book is a con­stant. The char­acters in the stories are the vari­ables, giving life and depth to the overall telling of the atomic testing that took place between January 1 and June 4, 1953, in the southwest deserts of Nevada.

Ronald’s sto­ry­telling is both real­istic and evocative. She depicts men and women, young and old, pro­fes­sionals and working stiffs with warmth, humor and respect in compact vignettes that give each atomic test its own reality check. This is a book that begs for a sequel. The reader wants to know what hap­pened to the miner who would not take cover; the Indian family sent back to their res without being told the truth about their con­t­a­m­i­nation; the sol­diers in the trenches who were mis­takenly led back onto ground zero after the bomb exploded; the sheep rancher who had to weigh his patri­otism against the fate of his ewes and their mis­shapen lambs; or the soldier whose neck was seared from exposure; and finally, the Mormon com­munity that was contaminated?

The author drops her facts as if little bombs them­selves. Like the fact that for each bomb dropped the gov­ernment invited hun­dreds to view the event (pols, newsmen, even a group of nuns) from a safe dis­tance, of course, and always with explicit instruc­tions for their per­sonal safety. The reader cannot fail to think of how quickly today such testing would be put before the judgment of a public of mil­lions through Facebook and Twitter. The role of women comes sharply to mind when thinking about how much more vocal today’s wives and mothers would be about their sus­pi­cions. And when remem­bering Liz, the young daughter who accom­panied her vet­eri­narian father to the sheep ranch, the reader might want to know how many female vet­eri­narians are today prac­ticing in the State of Nevada. Other factors and ques­tions remain, at least for this reader. What pos­sible long term effects did the tests have on Nevada’s soil and water? Do we know the envi­ron­mental effects of the under­ground tests?

Friendly Fallout 1953 offers today’s younger readers a chance to under­stand how a gen­er­ation of Amer­icans, less than ten years from the end of WWII, could so will­ingly accept the government’s insis­tence on the necessity for such testing. For the older reader, it’s a chance to remember with a lot more clarity. The issues of patri­otism, morality and science con­tinue to con­found modern society. Ann Ronald, a member of the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame, has mas­ter­fully told the story of an atomic slice of the year 1953 in a way that should capture the imag­i­nation of all Americans.