Shadow on the Hearth

Last updated
Shadow on the Hearth
Shadow Hearth.jpg
Dust-jacket from the first edition
Author Judith Merril
Cover artistEdward Kasper
Country United States
Language English
Genre Science fiction
Publisher Doubleday Books
Publication date
1950
Media typePrint (Hardback)
Pages277

Shadow on the Hearth is a science fiction novel by American writer Judith Merril, originally published in hardcover by Doubleday in 1950. It was her first novel. A British hardcover was published by Sidgwick & Jackson in 1953, with a paperback following from Compact Books in 1966. Italian translations appeared in 1956 and 1992; a German translation was issued in 1982. It was included in Spaced Out: Three Novels of Tomorrow, a 2008 NESFA Press omnibus compiling all Merril's novels (the other two written in collaboration with Cyril M. Kornbluth). No American paperback of Shadow on the Hearth has ever been published, although a book club edition appeared. [1]

Contents

Shadow on the Hearth tells the story of "a Westchester woman and her two children after the explosion of a series of atomic bombs on New York". [2] Merril described it as "a very political novel, ... written for political reasons". [3]

Merril began writing Shadow on the Hearth as a short story; "When it reached ten thousand words," she remembered, "I began to understand that it wanted to be a novel." Although she stopped working on the piece when it reached twice that length, needing to spend more time with her young daughter, Doubleday editor Walter I. Bradbury read the incomplete draft and bought the novel. Merril quit her editorial job at Bantam to complete it. When she completed it, Doubleday imposed its own title (avoiding any mention of nuclear war), revising the text to create a happier ending, and wrapping the novel in a nondescript dust jacket. "On the cover was an attractive young mother, obviously in great distress: it could have been a gothic novel", Merril later groused, "or basically anything". [3]

In 1954, the Motorola TV Theatre aired an adaptation of Shadow on the Hearth, retitled Atomic Attack . [3]

Reception

New York Times reviewer Charles Poore described Shadow on the Hearth as "a rather chintzy account of what happened to a Westchester family when the atomic bombs began to burst through the American air", noting that Merril "concentrate[s] on the creation of believable leading characters" and concluding that the novel "is generally entertaining reading, even if . . . not always for the reasons intended by the author". [4] Another Times reviewer, John Cournos, received the novel unfavorably, saying its story "seems more like a somewhat uncomfortable picnic than a manifestation of a catastrophe". [5]

Genre reviewers viewed Merril's effort more favorably. Groff Conklin described Shadow on the Hearth as "a masterly example of sensitive and perceptive story-telling." [6] Boucher and McComas praised it as "a sensitively human novel, terrifying in its small-scale reflection of grand-scale catastrophe." [7] P. Schuyler Miller found it a "warm, human novel" comparable to Earth Abides . [8] Startling Stories declared that "its beautifully rendered interlocking series of incidents and events . . . creates an almost too-vivid picture for the reader of what life in the very near future may become". [9] Kenneth F. Slater wrote in Nebula Science Fiction that "The emotions you will find here are in places hard and brutal, not softly sentimental". [10] Future Science Fiction . however, dismissed the novel for its "'true confession' level of writing". [11]

More recent reviewers also rate the novel highly. Lisa Yaszek writes that Shadow on the Hearth "is one of the only postwar holocaust narratives that manages to work its way out from under the paralyzing shadow of the mushroom cloud and to imagine the possibility of women -- and men -- working together to build a more peaceful and rational future". [12] Judith Merril: A Critical Study notes that "contemporary critics respect Merril's novel for its originality in domesticating nuclear attack -- hence the story's power and darkness". [13] David Seed reports the novel is "universally praised . . . for its understated method, avoidance of melodrama and unusually oblique description of nuclear attack". [14] M. Keith Booker declares that Shadow on the Hearth is "a relatively daring novel" and "a useful corrective to the heroic vision of post apocalypse life". [15]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cyril M. Kornbluth</span> American science fiction author (1923–1958)

Cyril M. Kornbluth was an American science fiction author and a member of the Futurians. He used a variety of pen-names, including Cecil Corwin, S. D. Gottesman, Edward J. Bellin, Kenneth Falconer, Walter C. Davies, Simon Eisner, Jordan Park, Arthur Cooke, Paul Dennis Lavond, and Scott Mariner. The "M" in Kornbluth's name may have been in tribute to his wife, Mary Byers; Kornbluth's colleague and collaborator Frederik Pohl confirmed Kornbluth's lack of any actual middle name in at least one interview.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fritz Leiber</span> American fantasy, horror, and scfi writer (1910–1992)

Fritz Reuter Leiber Jr. was an American writer of fantasy, horror, and science fiction. He was also a poet, actor in theater and films, playwright, and chess expert. With writers such as Robert E. Howard and Michael Moorcock, Leiber is one of the fathers of sword and sorcery and coined the term.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frederik Pohl</span> American science fiction writer and editor

Frederik George Pohl Jr. was an American science-fiction writer, editor, and fan, with a career spanning nearly 75 years—from his first published work, the 1937 poem "Elegy to a Dead Satellite: Luna", to the 2011 novel All the Lives He Led.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Blish</span> American science fiction and fantasy author (1921–1975)

James Benjamin Blish was an American science fiction and fantasy writer. He is best known for his Cities in Flight novels and his series of Star Trek novelizations written with his wife, J. A. Lawrence. His novel A Case of Conscience won the Hugo Award. He is credited with creating the term "gas giant" to refer to large planetary bodies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Algis Budrys</span> Lithuanian-American science fiction author, editor, and critic

Algirdas Jonas "Algis" Budrys was a Lithuanian-American science fiction author, editor, and critic. He was also known under the pen names Frank Mason, Alger Rome, John A. Sentry, William Scarff, and Paul Janvier. He is known for the influential 1960 novel Rogue Moon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Walter M. Miller Jr.</span> American writer

Walter Michael Miller Jr. was an American science fiction writer. His fix-up novel, A Canticle for Leibowitz (1959), the only novel published in his lifetime, won the 1961 Hugo Award for Best Novel. Prior to its publication, he was a writer of short stories.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Judith Merril</span> American novelist

Judith Josephine Grossman, who took the pen-name Judith Merril around 1945, was an American and then Canadian science fiction writer, editor and political activist, and one of the first women to be widely influential in those roles.

<i>The Stars, Like Dust</i> 1951 novel by Isaac Asimov

The Stars, Like Dust is a 1951 science fiction mystery book by American writer Isaac Asimov.

<i>Man Plus</i> 1976 science fiction novel by Frederik Pohl

Man Plus is a 1976 science fiction novel by American writer Frederik Pohl. It won the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1976, was nominated for the Hugo and Campbell Awards, and placed third in the annual Locus Poll in 1977. The story is about a cyborg, Roger Torraway, who is designed to operate in the harsh Martian environment so that humans can colonize Mars.

The first Golden Age of Science Fiction, often recognized in the United States as the period from 1938 to 1946, was an era during which the science fiction genre gained wide public attention and many classic science fiction stories were published. In the history of science fiction, the Golden Age follows the "pulp era" of the 1920s and 1930s, and precedes New Wave science fiction of the 1960s and 1970s. The 1950s are a transitional period in this scheme; however, Robert Silverberg, who came of age in the 1950s, saw that decade as the true Golden Age.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gnome Press</span> Defunct American small-press publishing company

Gnome Press was an American small-press publishing company primarily known for publishing many science fiction classics. Gnome was one of the most eminent of the fan publishers of SF, producing 86 titles in its lifespan — many considered classic works of SF and Fantasy today. Gnome was important in the transitional period between Genre SF as a magazine phenomenon and its arrival in mass-market book publishing, but proved too underfunded to make the leap from fan-based publishing to the professional level. The company existed for just over a decade, ultimately failing due to inability to compete with major publishers who also started to publish science fiction. In its heyday, Gnome published many of the major SF authors, and in some cases, as with Robert E. Howard's Conan series and Isaac Asimov's Foundation series, was responsible for the manner in which their stories were collected into book form.

<i>Tomorrow, the Stars</i>

Tomorrow, the Stars is an anthology of speculative fiction short stories, presented as edited by American author Robert A. Heinlein and published in 1952.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sam Merwin Jr.</span> American novelist

Samuel Kimball Merwin Jr. was an American mystery fiction writer, editor and science fiction author. His pseudonyms included Elizabeth Deare Bennett, Matt Lee, Jacques Jean Ferrat and Carter Sprague.

<i>Past Master</i> (novel) 1968 novel by R.A. Lafferty

Past Master is a science fiction novel by American writer R. A. Lafferty, first published in 1968. The novel follows the attempt of a future Utopian society in preventing its decline, by bringing Sir Thomas More to the year 2535.

<i>Flowers for Algernon</i> 1959 science fiction short story and novel by Daniel Keyes

Flowers for Algernon is a short story by American author Daniel Keyes, later expanded by him into a novel and subsequently adapted for film and other media. The short story, written in 1958 and first published in the April 1959 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story in 1960. The novel was published in 1966 and was joint winner of that year's Nebula Award for Best Novel.

<i>The Petrified Planet</i>

The Petrified Planet is an anthology of three original science fiction stories, edited by the un-credited Fletcher Pratt and published by Twayne in 1952. It was the first in a series of planned "Twayne Triplets," "a series of books to be produced by the 'joint efforts' of a scientist and a trio of writers." No further editions of the anthology were issued, although each of the stories was later republished.

<i>Why Call Them Back from Heaven?</i> 1967 novel by Clifford D. Simak

Why Call them Back From Heaven? is a 1967 novel by Clifford D. Simak, which became the initial volume in the Ace Science Fiction Specials line.

<i>No Place to Hide</i> (Bradley book)

No Place to Hide is a 1948 book by American writer David J. Bradley published by Little, Brown and Company. The book is a Harvard Medical School graduate's autobiographical tale of his work in the Radiological Safety Section in the Pacific in the aftermath of the Bikini atomic bomb tests, Operation Crossroads. The book alerted the world to the dangers of radioactive fallout from nuclear weapon explosions. The book was marketed for Bantam by Judith Merril, who found Bradley's prose "a man's book with little appeal for women", leading her to later write her own nuclear war story Shadow on the Hearth from the homemaker's perspective. Bradley toured lecturing on the dangers of fallout, including a 1950 lecture at Ford Hall Forum.

<i>Nebula Award Stories 1965</i>

Nebula Award Stories 1965 is an anthology of science fiction short works edited by Damon Knight. It was first published in hardcover by Doubleday in 1966, with a Science Fiction Book Club edition following in October of the same year. The first British edition was published by Gollancz in 1967. Paperback editions followed from Pocket Books in the U.S. in November 1967, and New English Library in the U.K. in April 1969. The U.K. and paperback editions bore the variant title Nebula Award Stories 1. The book was more recently reissued by Stealth Press in hardcover in February 2001. It has also been published in German.

References

  1. ISFDB publication history
  2. "Books -- Authors", The New York Times , June 10, 1950
  3. 1 2 3 Judith Merril & Emily Pohl-Weary, Better to Have Loved: The Life of Judith Merril, Between The Lines, 2002, pp. 97-99.
  4. "Books of the Times", The New York Times, June 15, 1950.
  5. "No Hiroshima", The New York Times Book Review , June 18, 1950
  6. "Galaxy's Five Star Shelf", Galaxy Science Fiction, October 1950, p. 141.
  7. "Recommended Reading", F&SF , December 1950, p. 104.
  8. "Book Reviews", Astounding Science Fiction . March 1951, p. 145.
  9. "Science Fiction Bookshelf", Startling Stories, November 1950, p.160
  10. "Something to Read", Nebula, February 1954, p.125
  11. "From the Bookshelf", Future, November 1950, p.98
  12. "Not Lost in Space: Revising the Politics of Cold War Womanhood in Judith Merril's Science Fiction", in New Boundaries in Political Science Fiction, Donald M. Hassler & Clyde Wilcox, eds., University of South Carolina Press, 2008, p.83
  13. Dianne Newell & Victoria Lamont, Judith Merril: A Critical Study, McFarland, 2012, p.35
  14. American Science Fiction and the Cold War: Literature and Film, Routledge, 2013, p.57
  15. Monsters, Mushroom Clouds, and the Cold War: American Science Fiction and the Roots of Postmodernism, 1946-1964, Greenwood Publishing, 2001, p.70