"This is one from the "Now for Something a Little Different" department. It is a blank verse poem involving the small upstate New York town of Saugersville, which emerges from a power failure to find itself alone in the countryside. There are no roads, bridges, other towns, or other people: only wilderness and animals. First published in 1939, At Midnight has been called the first science fiction/fantasy story told in blank verse. This initial paperback printing should be of interest to science fiction/fantasy and poetry collections as well as specialized collections of New York literature."—Library Journal
Description
At midnight on the thirty-first of March, in the village of Saugersville, in upstate New York, young John Herbert is left in darkness when the electric power goes off. The net morning George, who drives the milk truck, turns a bewildered face to the little group in the village store and says, “the road ain’t there no more.” Search parties are sent out and return, days later, exhausted and afraid, having found no other towns, railroads, or people.
This is the dramatic background for the narrative poem; it is a classic tale for the ages, a psychological fantasy and a poetic equivalent of Wilder’s Our Town rolled into one.
About the Author
Josephine Young Case, the daughter of Owen D. Young, was a poet and writer and the first woman to be a director of the Radio Corporation of America
February 1990
