"Teenagers from Outer Space" by Dale Bailey

AE Reads Skiffily

Can love fight past the intolerance of the 1950s? What if it's between a human and an alien? For our first episode of AE Reads Skiffily, AE shares an except from Dale Bailey's "Teenagers from Outer Space,"which first appeared in Clarkesworld Magazine in August of 2016. The excerpt depicts Nancy Miller's (the narrator) visit to Bug Town, an alien enclave that popped up in Milledgeville, Ohio in the early 1950s. Nancy's best friend Joan Hayden has run away to Bug Town to escape her overbearing father. Joan's ex-boyfriend Johnny Fabriano wants to take Joan from Tham (the alien's name is actually Sam, but the aliens have a lisp and Nancy is quite the irreverent narrator) for stealing his girlfriend and ruining the top of his Mercedes Coupé. I chose this story and this excerpt because Bug Town sounds so evocative. The alien ghetto sounds both enticing and dangerous, like a dangerous narcotic or really good cheese dip.

Read along here: http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/bailey_08_16/

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"Teenagers from Outer Space" Copyright © 2016 Dale Bailey, reproduced with permission from the author.