The Day After The Day After: My Atomic Angst

by Steven Church

Steven Church grew up in the 1970s and ’80s in Lawrence, Kansas, a town whose predictable daily rhythms give way easily to anxiety—and a place that, since Civil War times, has been a canvas for sporadic scenes of havoc and violence in the popular imagination. Childhood was quiet on the surface, but Steven grew up scared—scared of killer tornadoes, winged monkeys, violent movies, authority figures, the dissolution of his parents’ marriage, and most of all in Reagan’s America, nuclear war. His fantasies of nuclear meltdown, genetic mutation, and post-apocalyptic survival find a focal point in 1982 when filming begins in Lawrence for The Day After , a film which would go on to become the second-highest Nielsen-rated TV movie. Despite cheesy special effects, melodramatic plotlines, and the presence of Steve Guttenberg, the movie had an instant and lasting impact on Church, and an entire generation. Combining interview, personal essay, film criticism, fact, and flights of imagination, Church’s richly layered and darkly comic memoir explores the meaning of Cold War fears for his generation and their resonance today.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, History

224 pages, Paperback

First published February 10, 2010

Reviews

[Danielle Howland-ely · Rating 5 out of 5]

Being a child growing up in the 80s, I really enjoyed this book. I remember watching this movie and being terrified for years.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nearly 30 years ago, before perestroika and glasnost and the fall of the Berlin Wall, Lawrence, Kansas, was overrun by refugees from a nuclear blast. Allen Fieldhouse turned into a trauma center, neighbors turned against neighbors, death and destruction overtook the population, and what was left of society broke down. At least it all did on TV.
The TV movie “The Day After,” which aired in 1983, was set and filmed in Lawrence. It was a daring movie, pretty heavy for TV at the time, and it was intended to be an unflinching look at what the aftermath of a nuclear attack could look like.
It’s against the backdrop of this movie that Steven Church sets his memoir, “The Day After ‘The Day After’: My Atomic Angst," a touching, insightful look at growing up in Kansas during the waning days of the Cold War, and the lasting influence that childhood events can carry. ø
“My generation is really the first generation to have television memories that are not mostly tinged with nostalgic, warm, and fuzzy undertones,” Church notes. “We’re perhaps the first generation to be raised by the TV as a substitute entertainer and authority, a major familial and cultural institution in our lives — with all the complicated dynamics that entails.”
Church details his childhood with pieces of history and culture — Quantrill’s Raiders to the Incredible Hulk — aptly dropped in. Though he doesn’t come across as a “troubled child,” it’s obvious that the label would have been applied to him at the time, coming from a home broken by divorce, perhaps a little too preoccupied with war and violence. But he artfully captures how kids can latch onto an idea and blow it all out of proportion in their minds, and how that idea can shape, though not necessarily scar, someone, and even make that person better down the line.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

At first, it’s hard to imagine that Steven Church and I would have anything in common, starting with the simple fact that he grew up in Lawrence, Kansas and I grew up in rural Pennsylvania – but we do. We both grew up in the last days of the Cold War. We also grew up with what he terms as “Atomic Anxiety.” One of my first memories was the Three Mile Island meltdown in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; and Church also catalogs man memories dealing with the Nuclear Age. His childhood was marked by the fear of Nuclear War and the Stress of Reagan’s America – these fears come to ahead when filming begins of The Day After in his hometown. In spite of poor special effects and melodramatic plotlines, The Day After is still considered one of the most watched TV movies in history. Church explores the meaning of Cold War fears along with their influences on his generation.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Memoir of growing up in the 1970s and 80s told through the lens of the author's obsession with the TV movie "The Day After," which was filmed and set in his hometown of Lawrence, KS. As a near-contemporary of the author, and a 1980s child who was very frightened of nuclear holocaust, there was a lot to identify with in here. Worth reading.

[George · Rating 1 out of 5]

Utter drivel

[Liz Scheid · Rating 5 out of 5]

Steven Church is my hero.