The Long Loud Silence
First edition cover
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| Author | Wilson A. Tucker |
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| Cover artist | Richard M. Powers |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Science fiction novel |
| Publisher | Rinehart |
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Publication date
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1952 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover and Paperback) |
| ISBN | |
The Long Loud Silence is a science fiction novel written by Wilson A. Tucker. It was first published in hardback edition by Rinehart & Co. in 1952, followed by Dell paperback editions in 1952 and 1954.
At the Hugo Awards in 1953, The Long Loud Silence placed second to The Demolished Man for the inaugural Best Novel award.
The story takes place following a nuclear holocaust which wipes out every major city east of the Mississippi and leaves the survivors permanently infected with plague. To prevent the plague from spreading, the army sets up a cordon sanitaire along the Mississippi. The story follows one survivor, Russell Gary, as he attempts to get back across the river.
Gary, an army corporal, wakes up in a hotel room in Illinois following a drunken binge. He discovers that the town is deserted except for a handful of corpses and comes to the realization that the country has been subjected to an attack. He discovers one other survivor, a girl of 19. They take a car and, after filling it with supplies, drive toward Chicago, which they find to be in flames. They drive west, only to discover that almost all bridges over the Mississippi have been disabled; the one remaining bridge is guarded by army troops on the western side, who shoot anyone attempting to cross over. The girl abandons him; as he travels further, Gary learns that the nuclear attack was combined with bacteriological warfare which infected the entire population with pneumonic plague. Only those rare individuals with natural resistance have survived, but since they are carriers of the disease, the entire eastern third of the country has been quarantined.
Gary is nevertheless determined to cross over. He joins up with a former school teacher, Jay Oliver; they make camp in the hills outside an intact bridge in Kentucky, waiting for the army to allow people across. A woman joins them, trading sex for food. After realizing that the quarantine is permanent, the three decide to go to Florida for the winter where they find a fisherman's cabin on the Gulf coast. After a few months the woman becomes pregnant and expresses her preference for Oliver; Gary decides to leave.
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