On Earth as It Is on Television

In Emily Jane’s rollicking debut, when spaceships arrive and then depart suddenly without a word, the certainty that we are not alone in the universe creates intense uncertainty as to our place within it. Since long before the spaceships’ fleeting presence, Blaine has been content to go along with the whims of his supermom wife and half-feral, television-addicted children. But when the kids blithely ponder skinning people to see if they’re aliens, and his wife drags them all on a surprise road trip to Disney World, even steady Blaine begins to crack. Half a continent away, Heather floats in a Malibu pool and watches the massive ships hover overhead. Maybe her life is finally going to start. For her, the arrival heralds a quest to understand herself, her accomplished (and oh-so-annoying) stepfamily, and why she feels so alone in a universe teeming with life. Suddenly conscious and alert after twenty catatonic years, Oliver struggles to piece together his fragmented, disco-infused memories and make sense of his desire to follow a strange cat on a westward journey. Embracing the strangeness that is life in the twenty-first century, On Earth as It Is on Television is a rollicking, heartfelt tale of first contact that practically leaps off the planet.