Bombshell

by James Reich

Bombshell is a feminist nuclear thriller set twenty-five years after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, in which an alienated young Russian woman born in its shadow undertakes a road trip across the U.S., waging a guerrilla war against the nuclear industry and leaving in her wake a trail of destruction and assassinations. Obsessed with would-be Warhol assassin Valerie Solanas, Varyushka Cash recreates her atomic past through escalating violence and her one true goal: an assault on the Indian Point nuclear plant on the bank of the Hudson River. All along she is relentlessly pursued by the CIA, eager to capture Varyushka on charges of domestic terrorism. The cat-and-mouse chase leads to a final showdown in a decimated and irradiated New York, there on the cusp of a frightening new future.
The initial draft of Bombshell was completed five months before the Fukushima catastrophe, written from the author s morbid suspicion that the twenty-fifth anniversary of catastrophe at Chernobyl, Pripyat, and beyond would be marked by an echo in the present, shadowed by the real threat present in our unguarded and deteriorating nuclear facilities. Bombshell is a combustible and commercial step forward by one of our most creative and intellectual writers today.
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Genres: Fiction, Book Club

273 pages, ebook

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

James Reich is a novelist, essayist, and journalist. He is the author of The Moth for the Star (7.13 Books, September 2023), The Song My Enemies Sing, Soft Invasions, Mistah Kurtz! A Prelude to Heart of Darkness (Anti-Oedipus Press), Bombshell, and I, Judas (Counterpoint/Soft Skull). His psychoanalytic monograph Wilhelm Reich versus The Flying Saucers is forthcoming from Punctum Books. He is also the author of The Holly King, a limited-edition collection of poetry.

James is a contributor to SPIN Magazine, and his nonfiction has been published by Salon, Huffington Post, The Rumpus, International Times, Sensitive Skin Magazine, The Weeklings, Entropy, The Nervous Breakdown, Fiction Advocate, and others. His account of innovations in British science fiction is published by Bloomsbury in its ‘Decades’ series, The 1960s. His work has also appeared in the editions of Deep Ends: The J.G. Ballard Anthology, Akashic Books’ ‘Noir’ series, and various anthologies of fiction and criticism.

James was born in Stroud, Gloucestershire in the West of England, and has been a resident of Santa Fe, New Mexico, since 2009. He was greatly influenced by early exposure to the poetry of Dylan Thomas, and by a small book on dadaism, and later by Andy Warhol, the Beats, science fiction, psychoanalysis, punk rock, and the films of Ken Russell and Nic Roeg. Norman Mailer, Sylvia Plath, J.G. Ballard, Anne Sexton, Paul Bowles, D.H. Lawrence, and Lars von Trier are also vital constellations in his work.

Reviews

[Lynne Nunyabidness · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bombshell had so much going on -- on the surface level, the novel is about an anti-nuclear guerrilla making her way across the country and the CIA black ops guy trying to stop her. Look a little deeper (and not much deeper; the metaphors and overarching theme was obvious enough that I could see them, and I've always sucked at the "what was the symbolism behind the tree on page 345" part of literature classes), and you find a tale of male vs female, violence, environmental destruction (see "violence"), and love. The twist at the end is a kick in the pants, for the reader as well as the characters, with more than a little bit of gallows humor attached. I'm sure everyone will take something different away from Bombshell, but to me, I saw that in the end everyone ends up dead, but it's what you do with your time here that matters.

[Lindsey · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was very pleasantly surprised by this book. Ideological novels have a tendency to be dry and slow (Plague Dogs by Richard Adams comes to mind) and I was afraid this novel would be similar. Instead I found a novel more along the lines of The Sheep Look Up (which is one of my favorite books of all time). Cash and Dresner were not the well-rounded characters one typically finds in fiction - each represented an idea and the choice is up to the reader. Male and female, nature and technology, earth and man, peace and violence. Molly was my favorite character in the novel and she was not in it for very long (sadly...I would request from Mr. Reich a novel entirely about Molly). The plot was a sprint toward a final Wild West-style confrontation between the two main characters. Even when describing the gruesome Mr. Reich's prose was eloquent and beautiful. The novel was wonderfully paced and it didn't beat the reader over the head with high concept. I feel like I've found a new favorite.

I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

So many things in Bombshell could have felt over-the-top, even cartoonish in the wrong hands: characters as ideas, the all too convenient coincidence, the cowboy style showdown, and yet, and yet! Bombshell is both riveting and unexpected--and to Pripyat with Cormac McCarthy-- contains one of the most gorgeously drawn out depictions of apocalypse I've read in years.

[Sharyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is not a book I would normally choose to read.

It's billed as a Feminist Nuclear Thriller.