The Unit by Terry DeHart has a pretty straightforward concept: it’s about a family fighting to survive the aftermath of a nuclear apocalypse. It’s a very violent, gritty book, and it reads like an action movie, so we wanted to give the cover a very cinematic look. The “Unit” of the title is a bit of a play on words, as it’s a family unit that must turn itself into a military unit in order to survive. I could go on about the “nuclear” family having to face “nuclear” holocaust but then you’d all groan and go read someone else’s blog post here. (sorry, couldn’t resist)

The cover is a collaboration between the fabulous designer Chad Roberts and myself. He really gets all the credit for establishing the look and typography, but the original had more graphic, as opposed to photographic, figures of the family. After the final manuscript came in we realized the book was a little more gritty than the graphic look communicated, so yours truly took the template for the characters Chad had designed and found more realistic images we could then backlight and do fancy photoshop magic on to make them look like they were totally all standing together in front of a big fireball waiting to spring into action. (A.K.A. “Designer Magic”)

The author is an ex-marine and NASA security consultant, so you’re getting real-world what-if-sh*t-gets-totally-screwed kind of details here, which I think is fascinating, and honestly makes the book even more scary. This is not a walk in the park, people, trust me.

Description:

All cars stop running, and everything with a circuit board is fried.  The sky turns yellow-brown, and the era of American comfort, peaceful commerce, and civility has reached its end.   Set on the West Coast after a terrorist nuclear attack, THE UNIT by Terry DeHart chronicles a running battle in Northern California between a suburban family and a group of boys who have escaped from their juvenile detention facility.

The boys think of themselves as modern-day pirates as they prey upon refugees traveling the interstate.  When they attack the Sharpe family and kidnap the teenage daughter Melanie, each member of the family must make previously unthinkable choices as they fight for their individual survival and for each other.  The father, Jerry Sharpe, is a Marine veteran of the disastrous 1983 mission to Beirut and will stop at nothing to rescue his daughter and lead his family to safety.

Set in a world made toxic and silent by radioactive fallout, nuclear winter and the electro-magnetic pulses of nuclear detonations, THE UNIT explores the bonds of family and the power, limitations and ultimate courage of human trust.