Fallout

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2012

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-15

Chapters 16-30

Chapters 31-46

Chapters 47-63

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Discussion Questions

Background

Historical Context: The Cuban Missile Crisis

In October 1962, the Soviets deployed nuclear missiles to Cuba, triggering a 13-day confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States. This event came to be known as the Cuban Missile Crisis. The crisis began when U.S. spy planes discovered Soviet missile sites under construction in Cuba, just 90 miles from American shores. President John F. Kennedy responded with a naval quarantine of Cuba and demanded the removal of the missiles. For nearly two weeks, the world waited anxiously as the two superpowers stood on the brink of nuclear war. Ultimately, through tense negotiations, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev agreed to dismantle the missile sites in exchange for a U.S. pledge to remove its missiles from Turkey and to refrain from invading Cuba. The Cuban Missile Crisis is now widely regarded as the moment in which the Cold War came the closest to full-scale nuclear war.

Historically, the Cuban Missile Crisis was resolved peacefully. However, Fallout imagines an alternative history in which diplomacy fails and the nuclear exchange actually occurs, a scenario that would have devastated the United States. The novel captures an accurate sense of the pervasive anxiety and paranoia that characterized this historical era, and the author’s depictions of fallout shelter construction, school drills, and constant discussions about the possibility of attack are also true to life. Additionally, the author’s decision to employ a dual timeline provides a portrayal of the build-up to the crisis and juxtaposes this tense uncertainty with the devastating aftermath of nuclear war. In this way, the pre-attack chapters show how the escalating tensions affected daily life, while the post-attack chapters explore the grim realities involved in surviving a nuclear war.

Genre Context: Alternative History

Fallout takes a creative approach to storytelling by engaging with the conventions of alternative history, a distinctive subgenre of science fiction in which a real historical event is reimagined with a different outcome. However, because the novel also provides accurate depictions of the social realities at work in American society during this time frame, this blend of historical fact and speculative fiction places Fallout at the intersection of these two genres. Other novels that take a similar speculative approach to historical fiction include Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad and Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America.

While the novel is set during the real historical context of the Cold War and the Cuban Missile Crisis, the narrative deliberately diverges from actual events by imagining a scenario in which negotiations fail and nuclear war occurs. As historical fiction, the novel meticulously recreates the atmosphere of early 1960s America, capturing the social norms, political tensions, and everyday life of the period. Strasser’s attention to historical detail creates a distinct sense of verisimilitude, as when he includes references to specific events like the Cuban Missile Crisis and leaders like President Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev.

The novel’s exploration of period-specific issues such as racial segregation, gender roles, and Cold War anxieties further enhances the narrative’s historical authenticity. By deviating from pure historical fiction and introducing the alternative history of an actual nuclear attack, Strasser boldly explores the potential consequences of Cold War tensions if they had escalated to the most extreme possible outcome. The alternative history described in Fallout therefore allows for a more direct examination of the fears and anxieties that permeated American society during the Cold War era. By actualizing the threat of nuclear war, Strasser compels his characters to confront and survive the very realities that they only imagined or feared in the pre-attack timeline. This approach provides a unique lens through which to view historical attitudes and behaviors, and the author also critiques the darker aspects of human nature when people are forced to endure extreme circumstances.