Just Finished Reading: The Wives of Los Alamos by Tarashea Nesbit (FP: 2014) [230pp]
“How would you like to move out West”? That’s how it started for many of them. When they asked where exactly, they received a smile or a shake of the head. Don’t ask... Of course, they knew it had to be government work, war work, especially after the young officer who had called days ago had spent over an hour in their husband's ‘office’ behind a closed door. What about the kids? Schools would be provided. What about.....? SO many questions resulted in so few answers. They couldn’t even tell friends, neighbours or family where they were going or how long they’d be gone. Few of them thought it might be years. But it was better than the alternative. ‘Out West’ was preferrable to the Pacific theatre after all. They had enough brothers, uncles and friends of friends fighting the Japanese. At least their husbands would be safe. How little they knew. Safe is a relative term. Working on a secret programme that might win the war is one thing. But how safe was the project? What if something went wrong? What if....? So, how would you like to move out West?
I picked this up in my favourite Indie book shop a year or so ago because, as usual, it looked different and interesting. How right I was! This was one of the strangest novels I’ve read in years. It wasn’t the subject matter particularly, but the odd viewpoint. Now, most novels have protagonists and so on, good guys, bad guys, leading characters, side characters and on and on. Not here, at least not really. Obviously there are people in this novel. Some, a hand full or so, even have names. But the commanding point of view is far more generic which, to be honest, took a little while to get used to! ‘We’ was used almost exclusively. I can’t think of a single instance where ‘I’ predominated. The usual individualism of the novel was absorbed into the group – The Wives (a whole host of them) where the main character. It was certainly an interesting way of looking at things and, surprisingly, most effective and affective. It gave the novel an almost surreal, indeed haunting quality which has stayed with me for some time.
Coincidently, a gaming buddy & I went to see ‘Oppenheimer’ as I approached the end of the book. Seeing the movie and reading the book simultaneously gave an extra frisson (or would that be fission?) to both. Interestingly some of the quotes in the book were repeated in the film so I guess they were historically accurate. Interesting also was the idea – very much a side focus of the movie – that the detonation of the test bomb might set the atmosphere alight and kill everyone and everything on the planet. It was a low probability – but not zero. Similar warnings, all rather generic because of security concerns, echoed through the later part of the book. As the project broke such new ground, I couldn’t help but shudder at the apparently cavalier attitude to nuclear/radioactive material in both book and film. What they didn’t know most certainly could, and in some cases did, kill them. One thing that did make me laugh, and was very briefly mentioned in the film, was how ill prepared the US military were for the number of pregnant women at the Los Alamos site and the subsequent births. I doubt very much if Army doctors had much call for such skills!
This was an interesting and often amusing look at one aspect of the Manhattan Project that, I’m guessing, most historians or novelists leave out. Definitely a recommended read if you’ve seen the movie or not.
[Labels Added: 0, Labels Total: 58]
6 comments:
I'm tempted by Oppenheimer but was told the ending is harrowing. Did the novel mention the Los Alamos employees having numbered identities instead of 'names'?
I wouldn't call the ending 'harrowing'. It's a thought provoking film on a number of levels - not only around the development & use of the bomb but also about the way Oppie was treated afterwards. Why did they think it was harrowing??
The novel did mention how names were changed to sound more American rather than Germanic or Italian - and also as 'cover' identities. I don't think numbers rather than names was mentioned at all.
There was a few things I didn't like about the movie - some of the sound effects I found overly intrusive (although that might have been my hearing...) and I found the nudity scenes unnecessary even if they used them to show that Oppie was a serial philanderer... But generally I thought it was very good. Didn't seem like a 3 hour movie at all, which isn't bad considering it wasn't exactly an action film!!
They didn’t acknowledge the Hispanos pushed off the land to make way for the research facility, or that many of them worked at the facility without protective gear that was given to whites, and many of them developed berylliosis from exposure to Beryllium. It caused breathing problems, tiredness, and achy joints. Some also died of the condition. https://www.newstalk.com/news/the-story-hollywood-should-tell-oppenheimer-ignores-tragic-plight-of-los-alamos-locals-1490626
I realize they can’t tell everybody’s stories, and that the focus was Oppenheimer, I just prefer more inclusion of other people’s stories. Like I would have loved some background on Jean Tatlock, who was she, why was she in his orbit, why did she kill herself, beyond heartbreak? Did she have a history of mental illness? Did Oppie help drive her to it? Was theirs a toxic relationship? And what about Oppie & his wife passing their kid off to another couple for a few months? What exactly was going on with his wife, their relationship? You could see the numbers everyone wore in the movie, but it was never mentioned why. A brief mention about all the babies, but nothing more. I found the middle of the movie slow. They could have cut some of that to flesh out more areas of some of these stories.
The movies focus was very much from Oppies PoV. It was really all about him with everyone else being the support. I'd never heard of Jean Tatlock before the movie, but have been interested in the political situation both before & after the project. I have (I think) only one book on building the Bomb but have a few more on my Wish List. Research to be done! [yeah]
This book, being focused as it was on the wives of the scientists, spent quite a bit of time on the number of kids on site plus the number of pregnancies/births in the 3 years of the Project. It also repeatedly referenced the local population who were employed as cleaners and other jobs that the military either couldn't or wouldn't do. There was some reference to radiation burns on the scientists/technicians but I can't remember anything (or not a lot) about the collateral environmental damage caused by the Project. There was a reference to the glass created by the bomb blast and that examples of it were sent in the mail to town mayors.... Presumably though this was RADIOACTIVE?????? Bizarre!!
They didn't provide any specifics on why the ending was emotionally rough, unfortunately. As you might remember from that "Spinning Atoms" book I read last year, there was a weird enthusiasm for all things atomic in the early fifties.
It was probably about the (brief) discussion late on about nuclear proliferation...... More of a fact of life than harrowing per se..... That's one genie that'll never go back in its bottle!
Yeah, the 50's were pretty atom crazy - essentially they had zero idea what they were talking about [grin]
Post a Comment