William Elliott Hazelgrove's acclaimed nonfiction book, Dead Air: The Night Orson Welles Terrified America, is now available as an audiobook, offering listeners a new way to experience the story of one of the most extraordinary nights in American broadcasting history. The audiobook brings to life the events of October 30, 1938, when a 23-year-old Orson Welles and his Mercury Theatre on the Air presented an adaptation of H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds. The program was structured to sound like an ordinary radio broadcast interrupted by increasingly alarming news bulletins reporting that something had landed in rural New Jersey. The invaders were Martians, and what followed became an enduring piece of American history.
In Dead Air, Hazelgrove reconstructs the people, personalities, media environment, and events surrounding the broadcast, separating the mythology from what actually happened while capturing an era when radio possessed an immediacy and authority difficult to imagine today. The audiobook gives the story a particularly appropriate new life because Dead Air is, after all, a book about the extraordinary power of the spoken word—and about what can happen when millions of people hear something they believe might be real. As Hazelgrove puts it, "Radio was the internet of 1938. It was immediate, intimate, and trusted. Orson Welles understood the power of the medium, and on that October night he demonstrated just how powerful it could be."
The book has received national attention, with coverage including The Associated Press, The Wall Street Journal, Air Mail, and WYSO's The Book Nook. Hazelgrove is a national bestselling author of fiction and narrative nonfiction whose books explore dramatic and often misunderstood moments in American history. His work has been covered by The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, USA Today, NPR, C-SPAN, and other national media outlets.
The audiobook edition of Dead Air: The Night Orson Welles Terrified America is available now, offering both longtime readers and new audiences a chance to hear the story as it was meant to be experienced—through the power of the spoken word.
