Journal of a UFO Investigator Reading Guide & Discussion Questions

Book Club Discussion Questions

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For supplemental discussion material see our Beyond the Book article, Paranormal Propagandist: Gray Barker and our BookBrowse Review of Journal of a UFO Investigator.

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

INTRODUCTION
Danny Shapiro is a sixteen-year-old living in 1960s Pennsylvania with a seriously ill mother and an embittered father. Alienated at home, he's just as isolated at school. His onetime pal Jeff has moved on to other friends and other interests; his onetime crush, Rosa, has vanished from his life. His main satisfaction is investigating UFO activity, which he's been tracking in a secret journal.

Danny has had his own run-in with a flying saucer at age thirteen—or so his journal claims. As he details this event, he slips into a fantasy world in which an apparently chance meeting in the Philadelphia Library connects him to a band of fellow teen investigators who go by the name of SSS, "The Super-Science Society." Soon his new friends—the witty, faintly sinister Julian and the seductive Rochelle—lead him to Miami in search of a long-lost book, a mysterious text once found beside the corpse of a murdered UFO researcher.

He's abandoned in the Miami Airport, captured by the shape-shifting "Three Men in Black." These men may or may not know what happened in Roswell, New Mexico; they may or may not know what the SSS knows. Either way, they're after Danny and the book too. A nighttime chase leads Danny to a flying saucer. Before he knows it, he's transported to a moonlit netherworld—alone and wounded, tormented by thirst, while insect-like "lake creatures" await the moment they'll work their will upon his helpless body.

Trapped in this desolation, Danny fathers a half-alien child who will save the planet from destruction, if only her mysterious illness can be healed. As he struggles to keep his daughter alive, his dark journey takes him through Jordan and Israel to the deserts of New Mexico. Along the way he discovers the frayed threads of time, the secrets of death, and the space where faith, myth, and love intersect.

Plot twists and vibrant fantasy make David Halperin's first novel a compelling exploration of adolescent selfhood and the stories we tell ourselves when real life is too painful to face. Told through the earnest voice of its protagonist and set against the backdrop of the turbulent sixties, Journal of a UFO Investigator weaves together large ideas and simple emotional truths that will resonate with all who read it.

1. Danny encounters his first UFO at age thirteen. What is the significance of him seeing it at that particular age?
   


2. What is Danny's attitude toward his mother? Does it change throughout the book?
   


3. What role does Danny's religion play in his identity? In what ways does it help or limit him?
   

Unless otherwise stated, this discussion guide is reprinted with the permission of Viking. Any page references refer to a USA edition of the book, usually the trade paperback version, and may vary in other editions.