Irving E. Cox 43 min read

A boarder endures his landlord's teenage twins and their endless parties, until one party turns out to be very strange indeed.

Irving E. Cox's 1953 story sits with the long-suffering Gary Elvin, who rooms with the popular Schermerhorn twins and their swimming pool and convertible, as a juvenile gathering shades toward the uncanny. Wry, suburban social SF that finds the alien lurking in the ordinary rituals of American adolescence. Read it for a sly golden-age story where the teenagers next door are more than they seem.

In its time

Published in 1953, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

43 min read (a novelette, room for a turn or two).