The Red Menace: A Fiction

by Michael Anania

A recreation of the 1950s focuses on the life of a teenager growing up in an Omaha housing project as he deals with McCarthyism, the Soviet menace, fast cars, sexual fantasies, and the realities of poverty, violence and broken lives

10 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1993

Reviews

[Marc Blanc · Rating 2 out of 5]

I came to this book looking for an immersive, critical portrayal of life in the 1950s Midwest. That was my mistake. “The Red Menace” features interrelated vignettes, all lightly fictionalized accounts of Anania’s adolescent coming-of-age. The vignettes vary in intrigue, but I didn’t find any of them to be particularly insightful. The references to 1950s culture strike me as pretty basic—Elvis, James Dean, ‘48 Plymouths, wow, who’da thunk?

Neither did I gather much from the many pages spent recording the inane conversations in the hotel kitchen, and the periodic digressions into pastoral landscape writing struck me as obnoxious imitations of Willa Cather, the ur-Nebraska writer with whom all Nebraska authors like Anania are inevitably in competition or debt. The visceral concluding chapter offered some of the critical reflection on 1950s that I was seeking. The series of mangled automobiles represent the inherent violence of the midcentury American culture industry, a personal atom bomb for all involved in the crashes. But the characters in these accidents are all pretty unfamiliar to the reader, robbing the ending of its potential potency.

A worthwhile read for thinking about the literary history of the Midwest, but not much else.

[Eckhard · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this novel. There are some wonderfully funny scenes set in the odd multicultural kitchen that this novel is focused on. It really is very funny, delightful even.

[Kat Pegfred]

I'm giving up on this one...it's just not capturing my interest enough...