CLEVELAND, Ohio — HBO’s six-part adaptation of Philip Roth’s 2004 alternate-history novel, “The Plot Against America,” is as deeply disturbing as it is brilliantly compelling. Roth’s cautionary tale was influenced by Sinclair Lewis’ 1935 novel “It Can’t Happen Here,” and, of course, the grim message of both books is, oh, yes, it can.

The dream of America is a fragile one, Roth is telling us, and how quickly and insidiously it can be twisted into a nightmare by the forces of hatred, bigotry and ignorance. It takes constant vigilance and dedication and loyalty to foundational principles in order to preserve even the hope of that dream.

Lewis wrote his novel at a time when fascist dictators were putting the globe on a path toward a Second World War. Roth wrote his novel at time when the divisions in America were widening at an alarming rate and with little heed to Lincoln’s warning that divided we would surely fall.

But “The Plot Against America,” which begins at 9 p.m. Monday, March 16, is no allegorical soap-box sermon sanctimoniously clubbing viewers with messages and homilies. It makes for such riveting viewing because every chilling alternate-history development is filtered through the odyssey of one working-class Jewish family — the Levins (changed from the Roths in the book) of Newark, New Jersey.

Its considerable power is forged in the kind of deeply personal connection one feels sitting in a theater, getting to know a family over the course of a wonderfully literate, deeply nuanced and emotionally immersive drama. You are not merely observing. You are there, sitting at the dinner table with them, sharing their meals and their growing apprehensions about the world around them.

And the total-immersion experience is a hallmark of writer-producer David Simon’s television work, from NBC’s “Homicide: Life on the Street” in the ’90s to the 2002-08 HBO run of “The Wire.” The former Baltimore reporter gives us fully realized worlds, combining the skills and instincts of the journalist, novelist and playwright.

Winona Ryder in the six-part HBO adaptation of Philip Roth’s “The Plot Against America," which beings Monday, March 16. Michele K. Short/HBO

He draws us into those worlds, gradually and expertly, letting things develop at an unforced pace while we get to know and care about the people populating these worlds. And it’s when we care so much about them that we can’t look away from the troubling societal concerns Simon wants us to face.

The 1940s setting for “The Plot Against America” might seem worlds removed from the Baltimore so profoundly and intensely examined in “The Wire,” yet the two dramas share a great deal of storytelling DNA.

The close-knit Levins have reasons to be optimistic in June 1940, which is where “The Plot Against America” begins. Herman (Morgan Spector) has been told he is about to be promoted to district manager by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. It means that he and his wife, Bess (Zoe Levin), can move out of their apartment into a house in a more upscale neighborhood.

For Herman and Bess and their two sons, aspiring artist Sandy (Caleb Malis) and 10-year-old Philip (Azhy Robertson), it sure feels like happy days are here again. But there are ominous moments hinting that the Levins will be swept into the dark currents and undercurrents in an America still not fully recovered from the Depression.

With Franklin Roosevelt nearing the end of his second term as president, Europe is rapidly falling to the Nazi blitzkrieg. One of the voices against American intervention is a genuine American hero, aviator Charles Lindbergh (Ben Cole). He is persuaded to run for president against FDR, promising to keep the United States out of foreign wars.

But his candidacy also emboldens xenophobic and anti-Semitic sentiments around the country. So what would have happened, Roth asks, if Lindbergh ran for president and won in 1940, making sure the United States didn’t join the Allies in World War II? And what if that path pushed America toward fascism?

“Win or lose,” Herman says of Lindbergh, “there’s a lot of hate out there, and he knows how to tap into it.”

The sensitive young Philip senses that something is going wrong. After a living-room blowup between older relatives, he asks Sandy, “What just happened?” It’s the question we ask with the Levins again and again as conditions become more and more alarming.

The fissures in the nation are reflected in the family, often through decisions made by Bess’ sister, Evelyn Finkel (Winona Ryder), and Herman’s orphaned nephew, Alvin (Anthony Boyle). Nothing shakes the Levins more than Evelyn falling under the spell of charismatic Lionel Bengelsdorf (John Turturro), a conservative Southern rabbi and Lindbergh supporter.

Simon and his writing partner, former Baltimore police detective Ed Burns, are to be commended for not only fashioning such an engrossing and provocative drama, but also for assembling a top-to-bottom standout cast that makes the mesmerizing most of this potent material.

Degree by horrifying degree the nightmare grows, as much as you might want to echo that Lewis title, “It can’t happen here.” Roth told us it could have. Simon and Burns are telling us it could have and, wake up, because it still might.

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