Finalist for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize, a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Selection, an Indies Choice Debut Pick, an Amazon Best Book of the Month, and winner of two New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards.The “haunting . . . impressive” (NYTBR) National Bestseller-imagining the untold human history of the making of the atomic bomb.They … atomic bomb.They arrived in New Mexico ready for adventure, or at least resigned to it. But hope quickly turned to hardship as they were forced to adapt to a rugged military town where everything was a secret-including what their husbands were doing at the lab. Though they were strangers, they joined together-adapting to a landscape as fierce as it was absorbing, full of the banalities of everyday life and the drama of scientific discovery. While the bomb was being invented, babies were born, friendships were forged, children grew up, and Los Alamos gradually transformed into a real community: one that was strained by the words they couldn’t say out loud or in letters, and by the freedom they didn’t have. But the end of the war would bring even bigger challenges, as the scientists and their families struggled with the burden of their contribution to the most destructive force in the history of mankind.The Wives of Los Alamos is a testament to a remarkable group of real-life women and an exploration of a crucial, largely unconsidered aspect of one of the most monumental research projects in modern history.Mountains and Plains bestseller listDenver Post bestseller list Mid-Atlantic bestseller list
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The Wives of Los Alamos — I give it 5 stars because I really felt that this book WAS amazing (the criteria for 5 stars) — quietly powerful, emotional, eye-opening, moving, and thought-provoking.
The reviews of this book seem to vary from loving it to really disliking it, but most of the critical reviews are regarding the author’s writing style — first person plural. Many readers couldn’t get past it, had difficulty reading it, or just plain didn’t understand the author’s decision to use it. Some of the criticism is from those who complained that nothing ever “happened” in this book, that there wasn’t any action or conflict. *sigh* No conflict? I guess they just didn’t get it.
Personally, I don’t understand the criticism. I had no problem with the writing style and, in fact, totally understand the point the author was trying to make by using it in telling this particular story. While these women were all individuals from different parts of the country and the world, from different backgrounds and lifestyles, once they entered Los Alamos, they became a “we.” They were forced by circumstances to form a unified front against the hardships (physical and emotional), the censorship, the secrecy, and often, outright deprivation. I think the quotes below (from pages 127 and 207) make the case for the author’s choice of style:
<< NO MATTER HOW alone we felt there were things we could never do as individuals. A woman cannot conspire with herself. Alone, we were not a pack, a choir, or a brigade. But together, we were a mob of women armed with baby bottles and canned goods, demanding a larger commissary, and we got it. We were more than I, we were Us. We were Us despite our desire for singularity. >>
<< Saying good-bye to our friends was not just saying good-bye to them, we were saying good-bye to a part of ourselves. >>
But enough about the writing style.
If you’re looking for a book filled with excitement, action, drama, or intrigue, look elsewhere. And yet, I feel like I’ve been through the proverbial emotional wringer. This book is really about the feelings (including inner dialogue) of the women who went into the Los Alamos “compound” as young (often naive) women, simply accompanying their scientist husbands, with no knowledge of what was being developed in the Tech Lab until the war was over. With little or no contact with the outside world (except for radios), no telephones, no cameras, their incoming and outgoing mail censored, rationing, spoiled food (due to the distance/length of time it took to reach them), shortage of water for drinking and bathing, these women bore and raised children and tried to maintain a stable home life for the husbands they were told were working on a very important project for their country.
I found this book very moving, from the women’s emotional good-byes to friends and family, their inability to tell anyone where they were going or why (in fact, because they, themselves, didn’t know) to the criticism they endured from others, including their own children, in the years that followed — the years that included the Cold War, Cuban Missile Crisis, and Vietnam War.
When I say that I found this book quietly powerful, I mean that I thought the author did a great job of evoking compelling, gut-wrenching emotions neatly wrapped up in a quiet (fairly short, at only 240 pages) story of what may be the most pivotal period in our nation’s history, as told from the point-of-view of the women who lived it.
5 stars and 2 big thumbs up for The Wives of Los Alamos.
(You can tell how serious I am in this review because I didn’t use one exclamation point.)
This book is written in a most original manner, one that best suits describing the many women who stood behind the scientists and workers at Los Alamos. The reader gets a real feel for life at this top secret project by looking at the everyday lives of many varied women who lived in New Mexico at this time. It is unusual in that no one woman is a key character, it is a collective look, a story told in a most individual style. If you like woman’s history, read this book.