9/19/07: U.S.S.A.: Book 1 (1987)It’s easy to imagine the origins of the
U.S.S.A. series.
Red Dawn had been a hit back in 1984, and some outraged editor at Avon Books wanted to abort the burgeoning horrors of the Reagan era. Inspired, he developed the idea of a book series that addressed the true threat to America’s freedom—mainly, the U.S. military.
A few years later, we got
U.S.S.A.: Book 1. As the cover tells us, “It is 1996. The fight to save America has just begun.” Actually, that’s kind of prophetic. Bill Clinton would’ve been starting up his second term. In the world of U.S.S.A, though, America has to be saved from General James Gregory Sawchuk, who announces that he’s staged a military coup to save the country from President Cudahy.
The military’s taken over because Cudahy—and his majority Neo-Liberal Party—was cutting defense budgets and setting up conditions for Communist revolution in other countries. As Sawchuk explains, the military “could no longer stand by and see the United States destroyed by Cudahy’s weakness, indecision, and lack of moral will.”
Next thing you know, Ohio teenager Eddie Ludlow can’t even get a Springsteen album without going through the black market. His favorite history teacher—who once wrote an article about Sacco & Vanzetti for
American Heritage—has been replaced by a military man. School assemblies now end with “God Bless America” instead of “The Star Spangled Banner.” His country has been renamed as the United Secure States of America, and he can’t buy copies of
SPIN or
Rolling Stone.
Also, the military is breaking up demonstrations through the use of exploding plastic sparrows equipped with spy-cams.
Those exploding plastic sparrows sum up the
U.S.S.A. series. It’s all good fun as we get to enjoy one of the lamer Leftist indulgences of the ’80s. At least the start of
U.S.S.A. gets one thing right. There’s a scene where Eddie goes to see a movie, and can’t follow the plot. He hears rumors that a lot of stuff was cut from the thriller, and a more coherent version played in Canada.
That really would be the situation in real life. We just watched the premiere of FOX’s new (and lousy) cop drama
K-Ville, and it would’ve been incoherent if you cut out the part where Republicans were scheming to keep black people from coming back to rebuild New Orleans. Yeah, that’s the threat to New Orleans’ future—Republicans. The geniuses behind
U.S.S.A. would be proud.
Make it your own: In addition to
U.S.S.A. Book 1, you can get
Book 2 and
Book 3 for cheap. They all came out in 1987, and the series ended shortly afterwards. Frankly, things get boring even as Eddie slowly becomes one of “America’s brave freedom fighters of tomorrow!”
Book 1 is the only really fun read—and you can’t blame author Tom De Haven for the other two, since he didn’t write those. De Haven has, however, written for the
New York Times. No surprise there.
