Nuclear

by Sean Bernard

“NUCLEAR is a “picture of a shadow,” and the shadow is America–its dreams, its self-delusions, public and private. Sean Bernard shows he understands the story of America as well as anyone now writing. His prose is splendid, as clean as the desert wind. He is canny, wise, and heart-breaking: a major talent just beginning to be heard from.”

—Tracy Daugherty, four-time winner of the Oregon Book Award and founder of the Masters of Fine Arts Program in Creative Writing at Oregon State University.

“Sean Bernard’s voice is that of a perceptive, funny friend, telling secrets about anxiety and love and the places where the two intersect.”

—Scott O’Connor, author of Untouchable, winner of the 2011 Barnes & Noble Discover Award.

46 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2013

About the author

Sean Bernard directs the BA Creative Writing Program at the University of La Verne. His story collection Desert sonorous was awarded the 2014 Juniper Prize, his novel Studies in the Hereafter was published in 2015 by Red Hen Press, and he’s the recipient of a prose fellowship from the National Endowment of the Arts. He holds degrees from Arizona, Oregon State, and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and his fiction and non-fiction has appeared in numerous journals.

His second novel, Can Writing Be Taught & Other Novel Ideas, was published by What Books in Fall 2026.