“Aliens In The Prime Of Their Lives”

When I first picked up “Aliens in the Prime of Their Lives,” I thought I was holding a book for young adults when in fact, the 12 short stories are about young people – an under-appreciated mother, a rebellious teen, an angry lover who has been abandoned, a divorced father, a sexually abused teen, a mother who looses a child, and a young boy’s family vacation. There are also the experiences of a father and son at “Bodies:  The Exhibition” which showcases preserved human bodies dissected to display bodily functions, a young couple’s adventures in a car, the hunters that become the hunted, and a couple’s last moments on a doomed aircraft. This 263-page book reminded me of the “The Twilight Zone” – the American television series from the early 1960’s that depicted weekly singular episodes of disturbing, paranormal, or futuristic phenomena in seemingly normal day-to-day life.

Brad Watson, a professor of literature and creative writing at the University of Wyoming, wrote “Aliens in the Prime of Their Lives” in 2010 and the title of the book came from the name of the last short story (and the longest at 70 pages)  in the book. Will and Olivia are young (17), in love and with child when they steal away one afternoon, lie to a judge, and get married only to return to a less than joyous reception in their hometown. When they both have the opportunity to live the life of their respective dreams, their divergent paths emerge only to be sucked away by the realities of their real circumstances and the decisions they made as youthful lovers. A haunting tale of love, lust, and how alien two people can become when big decisions are made too early in life.

Watson’s characters are disturbingly real in all of his stories and although they are not alien in the green head grotesque body sort of way, they are alienated, isolated, and damaged people struggling through life without a compass and most importantly, without hope for happiness. In fact, happiness or the pursuit of happiness is not even in the realm of their universe either because of traumatic events beyond their control, bad decisions, or illusions. And yet, the characters can elicit compassion as they remind us of roads we didn’t take, people we know, or real life stories we’ve watched from a safe distance.