On the surface, The Chrysalids is speculative fiction about mutants and war, when it is actually a story about "otherness" and how people who are deemed "different" than society's expectations are maltreated. The story of David, a "closeted" mutant with a super religious and dangerous father, is the story of anyone who has to hide their true identity from even their closest family. It is a story that resonates in 2019 as much as when it was published in 1955.
