Archive for the ‘Manhattan Project’ Tag
The Atomic Weight of Love begs the question: how heavy is love? Elizabeth J.Church’s novel has war as its bookends: World War II and Vietnam. The passage of time reflects changes in attitudes toward conflict and women.
Meridian Wallace is a brilliant, young student interested in pursuing not only a college education, but an advanced degree in ornithology. This is unusual in 1940s Chicago. While at university she meets and falls in love with professor Alden Whetstone, who is secretly involved with the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos, N.M. Although he can’t reveal his research, he convinces Meridian to postpone her studies, move across the country and marry him. There will be plenty of time later to pick up where she left off academically. Ha!
Alden’s commitment to his work and the slow disintegration of a loving relationship could seem a cliché. Yet, Meridian manages to flourish even when the attitudes of the day bear down on her. On her own, she continues to study birds without the benefit of academic resources, she makes a few friends despite being ostracized for not having a doctoral degree like most of the wives in her community. Although they are well-educated they do nothing with their education.
Meridian falls in love with a much younger man but maintains the façade of her marriage with Alden, who becomes increasingly narrow-minded and unlikable as the novel progresses.
The author is masterful in the transformation she ascribes to Meridian and the world around her.
The Atomic Weight of Love
Five Bookmarks
Algonquin Books, 2016
352 pages
Denise Kiernan’s The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II made me wonder if it would appeal to anyone unfamiliar with Oak Ridge, Tenn. I lived in Oak Ridge for five years after college. It was a beautiful, fascinating place thanks to its population of highly educated people from all over the world and its impressive, albeit once-clandestine, past. Kiernan writes about how, and why, the town came into existence by focusing on the role of the thousands of women (and men) who did their part to help end WWII. Most had no idea what they were doing or why.
In 1943, people from major metropolitan areas and rural communities were recruited to relocate to a town which didn’t even exist on a map. Kiernan conducted interviews with many of the women, now in their 80s and 90s, to recreate the conditions they endured knowing only that their work contributed to the war effort. Friendships formed, romances ensued and construction progressed at a rapid rate. All the while no one could talk about their jobs. Yet, this was an integral part of American history.
Uranium, referred to as Tubealloy, was, in fact, being enriched for its ultimate use in the atomic bomb. Oak Ridgers learned about the secret the same time as the rest of the world when Hiroshima was bombed.
The advantage to knowing Oak Ridge is that it’s easy to envision Kiernan’s descriptions, but the book’s fascination is far-reaching.
The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II
Four Bookmarks
Simon & Schuster, 2013
371 pages with notes and index
The Blue Page Special 