Neon Green

It's the summer of 1994 in suburban Chicago: "Forrest Gump" is still in theaters, teens are reeling from the recent death of Kurt Cobain, and you can enter a sweepstakes for a spaceship from Jupiter to land in your backyard. Welcome to Margaret Wappler's slightly altered 90s. Everything's pretty much the way you remember it, except for the aliens.

When a flying saucer lands in the Allens' backyard, family patriarch and environmental activist Ernest is up in arms. According to the company facilitating the visits, the spaceship is 100 percent non-toxic, but as Ernest's panic increases, so do his questions: What are the effects of longterm exposure to the saucer and why is it really here?

The family starts logging the spaceship s daily fits and starts but it doesn't get them any closer to figuring out the spaceship's comically erratic behavior. Ernest s wife Cynthia and their children, Alison and Gabe, are less concerned with the saucer, and more worried about their father s growing paranoia (not to mention their mundane, suburban existences). Set before the arrival of the internet, "Neon Green" will stun, unnerve, and charm readers with its loving depiction of a suburban family living on the cusp of the future."