Oh Pure and Radiant Heart

by Lydia Millet

Acclaimed author Lydia Millet's latest novel is a black-comic tour de force depicting atomic bomb creators Robert Oppenheimer, Enrico Fermi, and Leo Szilard. Despite being dead, these scientists are spotted in Santa Fe by a shy librarian named Ann. She becomes convinced they are real and, to the dismay of her husband, devotes herself to them. The trio quickly acquire a sugar daddy — a young pothead millionaire from Tokyo — and a vast cult following of hippies, Christians, New Agers, bikers, A-bomb survivors, and curious anthropologists who join them on an RV pilgrimage to Washington, D.C. Heroes to some, lunatics or con artists to others, the scientists finally become messianic religious figureheads to fanatics who believe Oppenheimer is the Second Coming. This imaginative novel, rich with incident, brilliantly marries their journey to a history of atomic and thermonuclear weapons and to the emotionally intimate tale of a middle-class couple trying to stay hopeful about the future as they grow close to the men who gave birth to the nuclear threat.

Genres: Fiction, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Speculative Fiction, Novels, Literature, Book Club

448 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Lydia Millet has written twelve works of fiction. She has won awards from PEN Center USA and the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and her books have been longlisted for the National Book Award, shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award and Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and named as New York Times Notable Books. Her story collection Love in Infant Monkeys was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. She lives outside Tucson, Arizona.

Reviews

[Jake Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is a really, truly fantastic book here. There's also a mediocre book here. There are also a few other books here, and hence the issue: too much. A fourth of this book or more could have been scrapped and not missed at all, which is a shame because what would have been saved would have made for an astounding piece of fiction. What could have easily been an overly gimmicky book centered around three of the scientists largely responsible for the atomic bomb being magically transported into modern day at the moment the first test explosion happened in the New Mexico desert in 1945 is saved by Millet's brilliant, beautiful, funny and human characterizations of those three characters, and then completely compromised by an unwillingness to edit and an overwhelming willingness to repeat and expostulate.

Millet is a good writer. In fact, she might be a great writer. In facter, she might be a much better writer than she realizes. Throughout the novel Millet gives character asides and historical tidbits to examine things she's already rather beautifully brought out through her characters and the story action. It's like having really good sex with someone, then you reach a really nice climax, but then the other person just keeps going and won't stop and you start getting raw and frustrated and it's not like the sex wasn't good, but after a while you just start getting rubbed the wrong way.

See how that metaphor went on too long and became slightly distateful? You now know what it's like to read Oh Pure and Radiant Heart.

This review has turned more disparaging than it was meant to be. I actually really liked the book and plan to read more of Ms. Millet's writing very soon, but I have always found it so much more infuriating when a book is so so close to being sublime but then subverts itself than when a book is just plain awful. This book was so close. So close!

And the ending. Yowza. I have a friend who is a writer who told me once "For every story, you get one piece of b@tsh!t crazy." You get one piece of the fantastical, then everything else has to follow logically from there. Three scientist travel through time after the Trinity Test, that's your gratis b@tsh!t. The Deus Ex Machina in this book (or would it be Deus Ex Avis?) completely ruins a wonderful buildup of tension and intrigue.

Bah! Back to the negativity! The books is good, I swear! Really good! When you start to get bored, it's okay. Skip to the end of that section, you won't miss much, then keep reading. When it is good, it is very very good...

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 4 out of 5]

I know nothing about nuclear weapons or 1940s scientists, so I approached this book seeking an education. I was going to write “and boy, did I get one” here, but that would be so cringeworthy, I might as well sign up for the fucking Terry Wogan Appreciation Society.

So, Lydia Millet. Her novel opens with our homey protagonists, Ann and Ben. Ann is a librarian who thinks deep things about her boring life and is far too clever to work as a sheepish librarian. Ben is a put-upon gardener working for a Stepford wife and a unilingual Japanese designer. He too thinks deep things about life, but less frequently than his spouse.

Oppenheimer, Fermi and Szilard were the engineering figureheads of the Manhattan Project: the folks that brought you that most wonderful of inventions: the atomic bomb! When the bomb is dropped on Nagasaki in 1945, the trio are transported forward in time to where Ann and Ben live. This is never explained, but these details add to the novel’s barmy charm.

Through some contrivance or other, Ann bumps into the scientists and invites them to live in her house. Nothing happens much at first other than smoking and talking and reading. More deep thoughts about life. Then later on, Oppenheimer meets a slacker multi-billionaire named Larry (the Big Lebowski with money) and forms a cult around the scientists.

It then gets very Life of Brian – militant Christians start to think Oppenheimer is the messiah, and involuntarily elect him as the spokesperson for God on Earth.

Hmm. So that’s it. I can’t quite articulate just how I feel about the novel, other than to say: I liked it.

Millet breaks her almost 500-page epic into mini-chapters, including informative and opinionated asides on nuclear weapons, their damage, and the idiots who use them (this section is the most Vonnegutian). The characterisations are strong (if somewhat caricatured in places) and her prose is intelligent, scintillating and flecked with beautiful moments.

At other times, the prose is tedious, especially when she indulges in one too many of Ann’s deep thoughts about life, or when she loses sight of her protagonists in the third act, when we are dropped into the mad cult and left to fend for ourselves. Patient readers should be prepared to wait for the quite astonishing climax, however. No spoilers.

Apart from this, this is a fable and a satire stitched together. A fatire? A sable? Yes. One of those. I will be reading Millet again on the strength of this piece of work: an admirable attempt to combine socio-political comment with postmodern prankery and stylishly hewn prose.

Yes. Recommended and such.

[Justin Evans · Rating 4 out of 5]

novels this ambitious (nuclear science + military-industrial complex + American religion), fascinating, imaginative (Oppenheimer, Fermi and Szilard come back from the dead!), and funny (great satire of the sun belt rich) don't come along all that often. They should be read when they do.

But, as everyone who has read this book has pointed out, OPRH could have been cut by a quarter without really losing much of anything. The problem is: which quarter do you cut?

* Some readers could do with a great deal less of Ann and Ben's relationship. Their argument is generally not that Ann and Ben could be eliminated--they play an important narrative role, at least--but that there is far too much of them given how uninteresting they are.

* Some readers could do without the history of the USA's nuclear program. Their argument, in short, is "I hate learning. Keep facts out of my novels."

* I don't think anyone would want less of the final quarter: the story of Oppenheimer, Fermi and Szilard coming back from the dead. All three are wonderful characters; their actions dramatize perfectly the problems of scientific knowledge, social ignorance, political activism, and religious belief. That said, some would probably prefer a more convincing ending. Millet could have left it open, but this is a roman a these, and I understand why she ends as she does.

* Some readers could do without the philosophizing that the characters get up to, particularly Anne, who is given to thinking things like "If a country were more like a crowd, with feeling rippling among the ranks, instead of a network of institutions all distant from each other.... it would not control itself with such coldness and such economy. If a country were more like a body, then it might have a chance to know itself," (271). Is this satire? Ann/Millet must know that bodies don't know themselves, right? That bodies react to external stimuli without mediation? So if a country were more like a body, not only would it not know itself, it would probably start a war every time someone brought one too many bottles of wine back from the Rhine? (= geopolitical version of a mosquito bite). Later we get even more immortal thought along the bad-Rilke lines of wouldn't it be great to be an object so then you couldn't choose things and then you'd be content, why don't people just accept this objecthood and embrace it??? Because, Ann, then we'd all be dead.
Ben is guilty, too: "It is the world with its animals... tides and seasons, he thought: it is the world that gives us such a soul as we have. It gives us life and we all it our own," (274). If this seems a little less silly than Ann, don't worry, Ben will get absolutely moronic twenty pages later (293): "If the world gave us our souls, why were the souls so impoverished?" Because, you know, the world is so naturally full and perfect. "We have obscured the world, he said to himself... we have forgotten what the world is. We believe we are it. We can't see past ourselves to the world, he thought." Right, that's it! The world is perfect, it gives us our soul, but we've done something wrong with those souls, though I suppose the souls should have caused us to act as we did and... the naturalist's rather theological dilemma: if everything is natural, what causes evil?
Oppenheimer, Fermi and Szilard also get into a bit of the old cod-philosophizing, but at least with them it's often just a reaction to how much the world has changed since their last memories of it in the mid-century.

Now, you might think I've tipped my hand fairly heavily here, as to what I'd like to see less of. Yes, I like the very short bits on the history of nuclear weapons.

Obviously, you think, I object to the philosophizing. But not so, my friend! If I were to cut, Ann and Ben would get the axe. It's important to have some kind of domestic arrangement here, it holds the book together, but we only need connective tissue. Millet just doesn't make the very mild ups and downs of their relationship matter--in fact, the only time I was at all interested was when I realized Ann's obsession with the scientists could be read meta-narratively, as Millet's obsession with the scientists. That fits well with the most intelligent aspect of the novel: how to make the impossible choice between complete domestic happiness, and social activism. But it's a bad sign for the romance angle when it functions best as commentary on another part of your book.

Now, that said, the philosophy expounded here is *horrific*. I'm fine with books that philosophize, at great length. I object, however, to books that

i) stick words and thoughts in the characters' mouths, when those words and thoughts are fairly obviously those of the author. This is what a narrator is for: to say things the author thinks. Millet is too far into close third person for that to work. This is a technical issue that can't be overcome.

ii) go on at great length with *bad* philosophy. This is my third Millet book, and I'm fairly sure she's setting herself up as the Tolstoy of deep ecology. Nothing wrong with that, but if you want to make the case, for goodness sake, at least make it well. There's no reason to become a positivist ("what is is the world, and the world is right"). You can stop just short of that, at nature mystic; at least then you're not claiming that there's any rational basis behind the feelings outlined so clearly by Freud in his work on religion.

iii) expound a philosophy that directly contradicts the book's form, as here. You can't be a positivist, and write close third person. There is no close perspective in positivism, only bodies being pushed around.

That's an awful lot of criticism, so let me repeat: novels this ambitious, fascinating, imaginative, and funny don't come along all that often, and they should be read when they do. And, of course, I might be wrong: Millet might be presenting the deep flaws in ecological thought, and not affirming that thought itself. In any case, Millet forces you to think in ways that the average novelist can only dream of. As I said: Tolstoy of deep ecology.

[Sierra · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is so curious; it feels a little bit like a Kurt Vonnegut or Tom Robbins novel, but the diction is higher and the philosophizing more rampant. I can only conclude that Lydia Millet is so smart it hurts, because she can create scenes of intense intimacy and introspection (see the interiority of Ann and her thinking about her relationship with her husband Ben) and also of near-epic sideshowness (see the novel's climax, which involves miraculously resurrected A-bomb scientists, an army of Christian fundamentalists, a matching massing of neo-hippie/raver trust fundies, a SWAT team, and an impossibly large flock of whooping cranes). If there's a novel that more closely captures this particular moment in time's engagement with war and warmongering, I don't know it. Should be read in high schools everywhere.

[Darrell Reimer · Rating 2 out of 5]

Someone from Booklist has read Lydia Millet's Oh Pure And Radiant Heart and encourages would-be readers to “think Twain, Vonnegut, Murakami, and DeLillo.” Since I enjoyed the novel enough to finish it, I think I'm qualified to amend that list.

Twain: do not think Twain. Not even for a second. You're thinking “Twain” right now, and I'm telling you: no. Stop. Twain loved nothing more than, as the British punks say, “taking the piss.” Millet probably began her novel with the intention of taking the piss out of America's soul-withering reliance on nuclear arms, but when she's not focusing on that, she's putting the piss into so many other narratives — particularly the marriage of Ann and Ben, a bond which goes further than the novel's fantastic ending to strain all credulity — it frequently became difficult for me to take seriously what the author takes seriously. This is not Huckleberry Finn. This is not even Tom Sawyer, Detective. This is simply not Twain.

Vonnegut, Murakami: fairly apt comparisons, actually. Millet takes a cheerfully flaky approach to the most dire subject imaginable and uses absolutely everything she has at her disposal to make her argument sing and persuade, a tack similar to that of Vonnegut and Murakami. Having said that it is important to reiterate, I think, that Vonnegut and Murakami achieve their effect with varying degrees of success. Same, here. Oh Pure And Radiant Heart might not resonate as deeply as Slaughterhouse Five, but there is no denying the similarity of approach and effect.

DeLillo: yes. Lots and lots of DeLillo. The principal characters puzzle over the significance of the most arcane subjects that float across their field of vision, which sometimes yields surprising insights, and at other times yields unintentionally comic punchlines. This is definitely DeLillo, who can be obliquely terrifying and heartbreaking but who can also strain the patience of readers who finally have to get the groceries in from the car.

I will add one name to this list, a substitute for America's greatest satirist: Madeleine L'Engle, a fanciful writer who loved science, but for whom physics was not always metaphysics enough. L'Engle's raison d'etre as a writer was to explore the motivations that turned people from loving and lovable creatures into dire grotesques that would willingly exterminate another's — indeed, all — life. There are moments when Oh Pure And Radiant Heart reads like A Wrinkle In Time , utterly divorced of the daily and grounding concerns of family. This might be intentional; it is frequently effective. But it also generates a confused sort of loyalty in the characters, which just as frequently tried my patience as a reader.

It is surely a rich irony that New Mexico, which has played host to so many nuclear tests, is one of America's most fecund artistic locales and the launching site of various strains of New Age thinking and behavior. Is this novel a satire of vaguely arty, but ultimately misplaced hope? Is it an evisceration of the mentality that absurdly relies on nuclear arms for a sense of safety? Does it lay bare a muddle that our society has persuaded itself is a mystery? Occasionally the novel succeeds at all of the above — too occasionally for me to give it a flat-out recommendation.

[Jennifer (formerly Eccentric Muse) · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story set-up is outlandish (three fathers of the atom bomb are blasted into the future from the New Mexican desert, at the moment of detonation of the first test on July 16, 1945), but this is Lydia Millett, and of course she makes it all work.

There's a mad cap, caperish, almost picaresque quality to the narrative, which is populated by the three physicists (Leo Szilard, Enrico Fermi and Robert Oppenheimer), the person who first discovers them (a Santa Fe librarian named Ann -- "A librarian was a nun without God," Millet writes) and Ann's landscaper husband Ben. Along the way, as the scientists attempt to prove their identity and mobilize an anti-war movement in atonement for their actions, they attract "a billionaire pothead benefactor and a growing convoy of groupies, drifters, activists, former Deadheads, New Age freeloaders, and religious fanatics" (per the publisher's synopsis).

The novel's action is anchored by interspersed journalistic expositions on the development of the bomb, its deployment in Hiroshima and Nagasaki (harrowing stuff) and the history of the nuclear arms race from 1945 to the present, or at least the novel's present (2003).

What I loved most is the incredible dynamic between the many ludicrous and absurd characters and the equally ludicrous and absurd plot, and the exploration of the über-serious, deeper themes -- basically, humanity's corrupt, careless and inevitable bent towards self-destruction -- delivered to us mostly via Ann's and Oppenheimer's musings. These sometimes wander off into esoteric vagueness but stick with it, because it all comes together in a bang-up doozy of an ending.

Again, this is Millet, so while her focus here is on humanity's self-destruction via atomic weapons, there are also nods to humanity's self-destruction via climate change.

This novel is probably not for the faint of heart who teeter at the edge of hopelessness on account of either (or both) of these looming existential threats. Even brief moments of hope and happiness are couched in melancholy: "Joy rises unexpectedly, she thought, now in peace, now in crisis. The feeling of it escapes design, surging only at the far end of endurance, on the lip of despair. It trills a faint pulse beyond the normal in the tiredness of limbs, a lifted grief, the flash and glitter of the sea."

There is hope, here, of a sort. Perhaps not for people, but for the planet's resilience once it's rid itself of us, its primary threat. And for us, perhaps the hope is found in some kind of living-in-the-moment, existential meaning-making: "Maybe it was not fear of death that motivated the people who were most alive, she thought, but some other force, say a capacity for delight."

It's filled with this kind of gorgeous writing and imagery that resonates with the novel's preoccupation with the end times, with past, present and future, and with the underlying question: when is it too late to change the trajectory we're on? (Spoiler alert: July 16, 1945.)

Entirely engrossing if also terrifying.

[Tim · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved the premise. The three men responsible for the atom bomb are transported from the trinity site to modern day New Mexico. Learning about them and exploring their reactions to how their lives played out made for good reading. I found myself really caring about the characters. The only exception was Leo Szilard, who came across as a caricature.

I really liked it at the beginning, but it overstayed its welcome. As others have said, it could have been a really good 200 page novel. Instead, it just goes on and on. The end scene, in which a bunch of weird stuff happens that mostly seems pointless, is around 40 pages. Way longer than it needed to be.

She didn't just pack too many ideas into the book (which she did do), she also spent too much time on minutiae. People walking around rooms, eating food, watching other people perform mundane tasks; all of it is described in detail.

I also got really tired of the constant barrage of deep thoughts. Every thought seemed to be a revelation. Anything that actually was revelatory got lost in the shuffle.

Still, at times it was great. The dialogue was often witty. Many parts were laugh out loud funny. The history of nuclear weapons interspersed throughout was also interesting.

When she's focused and to the point, she's brilliant but the end result was just too scattershot. I really enjoyed parts of the novel, but by the end I was skimming pages.

[Stacy Holmstedt · Rating 2 out of 5]

A book represents an investment in time. A 530-page novel is a lot of time for a slower reader like me, so I don't like finishing a long story with a sigh and a feeling of confused dissatisfaction. I've wanted to read this book for years and it started off captivatingly -- a librarian experiences a traumatic event, and suddenly starts seeing long-dead nuclear scientists roaming her hometown. Great premise. But then, the characters travel to Japan (using fake IDs) and the story sputters out. Pensive librarian Ann and melancholy Robert Oppenheimer-- the novel's only complex characters -- are distracted by a cartoony supporting cast. Yes, we get it -- Leo Szilard is a fat man who likes to eat, Enrico Fermi is depressed, Larry is a stoned surf bum, Tamika is a space cadet. It's hard to care about any of them, and by page 400 you're with Ann's bedraggled husband Ben -- rooting for it all to be over so everyone can just go home. The novel's small suspense in the form of mysterious black ops men following the scientists around the globe gives way to a boring plot turn about right-wing End Times true believers following the scientists around until it collapses into a convenient Deus ex machina that leaves Ann, well, pensive and maybe drinking a little more. I wish I'd been more moved, in the end.

[Stephanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lydia Millet's book is one of the best I've read in the past year. It's beautifully written, smart, filled with the sense of the impermanence of existence, the frailty of our species, the beautiful foolishness of our attempts to tamper with Nature. It will make you think differently; it might make you weep. It has some amazingly beautiful lines and observations. The plot becomes fantastical at the end; you have to be willing to go on the journey with Millet, but it's a hell of a ride. Thanks, Telaina, for turning me on to this great book!

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

My favorite of the five Millet books I have read. A realistic sci-fi mash up of a-bomb scientists and religious nut jobs, which drags a bit in the middle. The writing is at times quite beautiful, and Millet shows that she can do good dialogue when she wants to.

[Trey Hall · Rating 4 out of 5]

Imperfect and emanating beauty, mystery, and luminously dark truth. Millet is a sage.

[Eggletina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Original and devastating, but needed a big old edit. Will probably think about it forever, though!

[Raventongue · Rating 1 out of 5]

Mother. Fucking. What. The first part of this novel was a solid 3.5 or 4 stars. It completely changes tone at what feels like exactly halfway through and becomes essentially a different book with vaguely related characters. Oh Pure and Radiant Heart segues over to bad fanfiction of itself. I resent myself for having continued to read it.(spoilers past this point)

What rocked about the first part:
Enrico frickin' Fermi. The bit where he goes, "There were secret police in Italy too. You don't scare me." is one of the last great moments before the book goes to shit.

Millet is capable of prose with a brevity and power few can rival, including Hiroshima scenes that will give you nightmares.

A shout-out to Lovecraft. Fat vegans. Gallows humour. There's something for everyone in here.

What sucked about the second:
Oh man, I really don't care about things like whether Anne has an emotional affair with Oppenheimer or not. Get back to the parts about remorse and the modern world and Fermi telling Szilard "You died of being fat", please.

Toooooo much of the characters contemplating shit in exhaustive detail via the third person narrative. Always with the philosophizing. It does not make good fiction, man, just get a blog.

No remotely sensical ending. It's like I brought the book to a shady bar and someone cut it in half while I was on the dance floor so I only got to read to the middle.

The actual prose, which had been going a little purple at times before, gets out of hand in the second half and there is less and less of the style she used when describing the aftermath of Hiroshima.

[Liz · Rating 2 out of 5]

so, is it ok to review a book I didn't finish? well, I'm going to do it anyway. this book has such great potential. the premise is brilliant and the narrative is simply poetic at most points. it's just too long, and filled with too many sanctimonious segues about nuclear war. maybe someday I'll finish it, or perhaps read an abridged version.

[Karen Connelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Possibly my favourite American novel in 10 to 15 years. It's so weird, and so believable--the atomic scientists come back to life and Oppenheimer becomes a peace activist--and tender. I haven't read it for a few years but I LOVED it. And now that the nuclear threat is once again looming because of North Korea, it is more timely and chilling than ever.

[Glenn Evans · Rating 5 out of 5]

W. O. W.

Pretty much the perfect novel: poignant without being overly sentimental, erudite without being difficult to follow, and able to convey an important message without ever even remotely pontificating.

One of my absolute favourite reads in a long, long time.

[Millie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing story - enthralling right up to the end. Did not end as I expected, but a very clever finish. Both philosophical and humorous . Fully developed characters. Illuminating contrasts of past and present social themes.

[Christina · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book is so lovely, the writing is delicious. it also includes lots of facts about US nuclear testing past and present - truly horrifying stuff.

[Jen Hitt · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love books where the prose starts affecting the way I think. This book makes it so easy to slip into the minds of the characters and for them to slip into yours.

[Alison · Rating 5 out of 5]

i didn't expect to like this book as much as how the dead dream, but i was held completely enthralled throughout...

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would give 3.5 if I could. Loved the book, but I disliked the ending.

[Maddie · Rating 4 out of 5]

For a 20 year old book, this sure had some relevant commentary to today! Although this book was a little long for me, I enjoyed it and it’s definitely one you can pick up and put down. Ann and her husband Ben live in Santa Fe when Ann witnesses a death while working. It haunts her and one night she dreams of Oppenheimer, the atom bomb scientist who has long been dead, and then he shows up in real life (along with Fermi and Szilard) 40-50 years after their deaths with their last memory being the test bomb exploding in the desert in 1945. As they grapple with the outcomes of their work, the progress made in various industries and sociopolitical trends, and technological differences, they meet and begin living with Ann and (begrudgingly) Ben, before finding followers in a religious/cult-like way. I thought some of the rapid fandom of these powerful (and oh so flawed) men was really interesting, particularly today thinking about the technology oligarchs in America, and considering Millet wrote this in the years immediately following 9/11 and the beginning of the war in Iraq, I can see how politics then influenced her writing. I didn’t know much about the atomic bomb/the people who created it, but Millet gives you what you need to know. I think it was very well researched, as I learned a lot, and it also may inspire some deeper dives into these people/this time in the future.

[Emily L. M. Guile · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was effort to finish this one. On one hand, I LOVED the historical/factual information peppered beautifully through this novel. It was also written in a format I’d never seen before - rapidly shifting between character inner thoughts, storylines and from speech to mental conversations. I also appreciated the commentary on radical belief and the characters that grew from radicalism.

On the other hand, it was... hard to really get into. You don’t really like the main character, nor get to understand her at all. The novel starts with promising foreshadowing of deep character development, but you never really get anything more. Don’t expect deep character development from any of the characters though - I think the author was more concerned with the agenda that nuclear weapons are prolific and horrific.

To summarize: the factual portion was definitely well researched and I did enjoy googling all the historic events. I learned a lot... but the fiction was esoteric, hard to digest and left me disappointed.

Also, the editing was poor. Several glaring grammatical, printing and storyline errors.

[Andrea Ptak · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book isn't perfect, but it has stuck with me more than so many of the other books I've read recently, probably because the message is so important. Nuclear weapons have definitely done so much damage to the planet—and not just to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but to all the beings and wild places on the planet where they were tested.

The book itself in so many ways is a bit of a miracle. Prior to reading it, I saw so many references to Vonnegut and DeLilo and I saw those for sure, but there's definitely more than a touch of Tom Robbins in there too and I won't be spoiling the fun by giving the similarities away.

As I said in the opening, the book isn't perfect. It lags in places and can be overly didactic. But it also has an endearing protagonist and some interesting commentary on a variety of topics from gentrification to religious zealots. And, as noted, this one just has just stuck with me.

[Mattschratz · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was so good. It is an example of one of my favorite genres, that I wish I could better articulate. The basic genre is a kind of first-person narrating attitude in which the narrator responds less skeptically or less frantically to wacky events than they should. I guess it's a positive version of Wood's hysterical realism, only more phenomenological: it's not a system, but more located. That's especially true in this book, which features a really wild but strikingly localized series of events around the resurrected Szilard, Oppenheimer, and Fermi.

[Jody]

Second DNF of the new year, so not off to a great start. I love Millet’s writing, and the concept of this novel—Oppenheimer and two other scientists from the Manhattan project somehow deposited in 2003 New Mexico—seemed even more interesting now (early 2025) than it did when it was published.

But my god. So many characters and side quests and and and and. I just had to put it down and move on. I will continue to read (and hopefully love) Milllet, but this wasn’t the right book at the right time.

[Kathleen Suess · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don't know how to rate a book that I have 'ditched.' Does 'ditched' mean the same thing as 'gave up on'; 'stopped reading?'
I made it to page 130 or thereabouts. I gave up. I wasn't enjoying it. Sorry to say, I didn't like the main character Ann, or her husband Ben. I couldn't seem to connect with them, other than to feel that they were behaving mostly like nitwits, or doormats.
The premise of the book is unique and could be interesting. But for me, it fell short.

[Dirk Gently · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the first half. Worth reading on its own merit. Slow, thoughtful, quirky AND Robert Oppenheimer. The second half is a silly rant against characakture right wingers and totally lost my interest. I read this book twice, years apart, because the first half stuck with me. Don't go further than the visit to Japan.

[David Kirchman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wrapped around this at times lyrical novel is a polemic against nuclear weapons. Along with the novelistic parts are short lectures about the history of the atom bomb and the US military. The appearance of Oppenheimer, Leo Szilard, and Enrico Fermi in 2003 is not the only unbelievable part. I kept reading if only to see the form of their inevitable fate.

[Amanda · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read this book for grad school and HATED it. I later heard that the author further edited the book down, so maybe it got better. I think our teacher only assigned it because the author was a friend of hers. Yuck.