On Earth as It Is on Television

**First Contact stories have never been as intoxicating and fun as in Emily Jane’s novel of the sudden arrival—and equally sudden departure—of spaceships above Earth.** The arrival of spaceships can bring up a lot of big questions: What does it mean that we’re not alone? Why did aliens come here? Who knew beforehand? Where…. are the *aliens going?* *Wait… They can’t just leave!* Without inviting us into their galactic federation—or at the very least obliterating us! In Emily Jane’s debut—a rollicking paean to what it means to be alive in the twenty-first century—the fleeting presence of alien vessels, and the certainty that humans are not alone in the universe, sparks intense *un* certainty as to our place within it. Blaine has always been content to go along with whatever his supermom wife and television-addicted, half-feral children want. But when the kids blithely ponder skinning people to see if they’re aliens, and his wife announces a surprise road trip to Disney World, even steady Blaine begins to crack. Half a continent away, Heather, bored in a Malibu pool while the ships hover overhead, watches as the Arrival heralds the demise of her dead-end relationship and sets her on a quest to understand herself, her accomplished (and *oh-so-annoying* ) stepfamily, and why she feels so alone in a universe teeming with life. And Oliver, suddenly conscious and alert after twenty catatonic years, struggles to piece together broken memories and understand why he’s following a strange cat on a westward journey and into the greatest adventure of his—or anyone’s—lifetime.