Those years between 1957-1963 proved to be tumultuous years indeed. On the Beach was published in 1957, but the novel is set in what was then the near future of 1963.

I dare say it will get along all right without us.”Īn Instructional Manual from 1951 on what to do in the event of an A-Bomb attack. The world will go on just the same, only we shan't be in it. The only small solace the book offers is that it is possible to face the end with our humanity intact.“It's not the end of the world at all,' he said. The submarine mission only confirms the thoroughness of the devastation, leaving everyone in Australia - including Peter and his young family - with no option but to try to find small ways to enjoy their remaining time together before succumbing to agonizing radiation sickness or opting out quickly and painlessly with free suicide pills supplied by the government. Peter Holmes, a newlywed with a young wife and baby daughter, is assigned to one of the world's last remaining submarines, which travels north to investigate the source of a faint radio signal, in the hopes of making contact with whomever is sending it. The radioactive fall-out clouds are drifting ever southward, and there's nothing anyone can do but track their inexorable progress. Myla Goldberg sings and plays accordion and banjo in the Brooklyn art-punk band The Walking Hellos.Īs it turns out, most of On the Beach is taken up by the people of Australia waiting to die. The planet's only remaining habitable places are parts of Africa, South America, New Zealand and. A title like that could have inferred young love or a summer idyll.Ĭarried by taut, no-nonsense prose, I entered a post-WWIII world, in which nuclear blasts have already eradicated life from the Earth's Northern Hemisphere. Then, one day while browsing the shelves of my middle school library, I picked up On the Beach, by Nevil Shute.

and the USSR, I would live happily ever after. There, on that isolated island continent far removed from the U.S. In those Cold War days, apocalypse was in the air, from Sting crooning that he hoped the Russians loved their children too, to a made-for-TV spectacle called The Day After, which branded the image of a mushroom cloud into my 12-year-old brain and inspired me to craft my own survival plan: When the time came and war seemed imminent, I would hop a plane with my family and head to Australia. Growing up, I had pretty much the same interests as any other early '80s kid: I loved The Muppets and Schoolhouse Rock, and I was obsessed with mutually assured nuclear destruction. Myla Goldberg's books include The False Friend and Bee Season. Your purchase helps support NPR programming.

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On the beach by nevil shute