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ENEMY HAD IT TOO by Upton Sinclair

ENEMY HAD IT TOO

A Play In Three Acts

by Upton Sinclair

Pub Date: Aug. 25th, 1950
ISBN: 0670295035
Publisher: Viking

An American scientist sent to the South American jungles to investigate curare and other plants finds himself and his almost grown son and daughter completely cut off from civilization and threatened by change of chieftains among the head hunters who had been their friends. So they escape- and by sail boat eventually reach New York to find it a wasteland. The only survivors of a world wide plague, distributed in chemical-biological warfare, are gangsters and ignorant guttersnipes. The girl escapes one man bent on making her his prisoner by poisoning him with her fingernail dipped in curare. The boy is shot-but not badly hurt. Eventually, they join forces with a family of refugees from the plague in Iceland, and then meet with aviators back from a 15-year expedition to Mars. Two Martian women are released to dig their way under the earth there to populate the world, while the rest of the survivors set out in the plane to return to Mars. Plenty of opportunity for some cynical commentary on the contrary forces at large in the world, and situations that are a blend of superman and the comic strips, in straight farce. Can't see it in production, as there is little build up to a climax or opportunity for action.