Helium centers around a guarded young woman who slips into the orbit of a roadside refuge for people entranced by flying saucers and cosmic messages. Why did you choose the late 1940s as the setting for Joan’s story?

I never really had a choice. History dictated the story’s time frame. The strange little commune in which Helium plays out was a real place called Palomar Gardens. It sat at the bottom of a long, winding mountain road running up to the newly constructed Palomar Observatory. It was where a would-be spiritual guru named George Adamski reinvented himself as a purveyor of universal truths supposedly revealed by cosmic acquaintances from other worlds. He became the most famous member of a small cadre of earthbound messengers known as the “contactees.” These were people who claimed not only to have witnessed flying saucers, but to have met the extraterrestrial ebeings who piloted them. Adamski’s stay at Palomar Gardens stretched from the 1940s to the 1950s, so there was never really any question in my mind that that was when Helium should take place.

Joan is both skeptical and deeply longing for something beyond herself. How did you develop that tension within her character?

It was a slow and meandering process. When I started to write Helium, I had only a vague idea of who Joan was. As time went on, I became convinced that she should embark on a search for hope—one based on a conviction that anything, no matter how unlikely, is possible. I also knew that I wanted to put her in conflict with a fictionalized version of George Adamski, even if I wasn’t sure at first what the basis of that conflict should be. Eventually, I decided to create in her a deep longing rooted in a fantastical “gift” that parallels the metaphysical aspects of the 1950s flying saucer craze. The parallels initially strengthen Joan’s relationship with George before resulting in a rupture of betrayal and comeuppance.

How much research did you do into postwar California, Palomar Mountain, and early UFO culture?

A lot. I started researching America’s mid-century flying saucer phenomenon during the mid-1990s. Over time, I became something of an amateur expert in what’s admittedly a rather obscure subject. I made two trips to Palomar Mountain. With my background in television, I originally aimed to turn my research into a documentary. That went nowhere. Then I tried other things: a screenplay, a blog, a podcast. Each time, utter failure. Finally, I turned to fiction. Bingo! It took three decades, but my flying saucer obsession has finally resulted in something solid: this novel called Helium.

What do you hope readers are still thinking about after they finish Helium?

While writing Helium, I took unexpected comfort in exploring the intersections of hope and uncertainty. I like to think that at least some of my readers will come away feeling something similar. Helium takes place during a historical period when it seemed like everyone was seeing impossible things in the sky. I’m not sure the things they saw were extraterrestrial, but what if they were? If the impossible is possible, if mystery can exist alongside certainty, then maybe we have the excuse we need to stop doom-saying and doom-scrolling. Maybe there are answers we’re still unable or unwilling to see. I hope that when readers put down Helium, they will at least be more willing to entertain those possibilities.

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