IF THE SUN DIES

by Oriana Fallaci ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 24, 1966

She admits right off that it doesn't matter whether a conversation really took place beside a rocket or a cheese sandwich: the important truth is ""what"" was said--the attitude for our age and the future. This book is Florentine reporter's personal odyssey into space, a dialogue between the past and the present, a beautiful moving pattern of talk, reverie and fact. Oriana Fallaci came to the U.S. in 1964, ""sponsored by herself,"" to explore the space program. She came questioning the worth of such a technological future, appalled by plastic flowers and leveled palm trees, wondering what kind of heroes the astronauts were, struggling with memories of, the war as she interviewed Von Braun. She goes to L.A., Houston, Huntsville, New Mexico, Cape Kennedy. She talks with Wally Shirra about death and fear. She refuses at the last minute to go into the centrifuge. She is angry about the laconic ""old age"" attitude of many of the newer astronauts. She dreams up a scheme for stealing the moon, which is, after all, made of green cheese, and forms an enterprise for setting up hot dog shops up there, on Mars, on.... Wherever she goes to talk with people, to describe what she sees, she takes herself and her humor, her insight. Her blatant honesty informs and illuminates. Her book is quite a feat of imaginative reportage--a critical tribute to our time and the strange dreams of the future.

Pub Date: Oct. 24, 1966

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Atheneum

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1966

Categories: NONFICTION