An absorbing novel that radiates historical rigor and emotional astuteness.
A female physicist from an affluent family and a poor engineer begin a fraught romance while working on the Manhattan Project in Robbins’ historical novel.
In 1944, Alice Katz and Caleb Blum begin working on the fiercely secretive Manhattan Project in Los Alamos, New Mexico, under the tutelage of the famous J. Robert Oppenheimer. They have little in common—she has a doctorate in physics and hails from a wildly wealthy background while his Orthodox Jewish family is so destitute he cannot afford to continue his academic studies in engineering. He works for the Special Engineer Detachment, an outfit often looked down upon as a cohort of expendable grunts, while Alice is handpicked by Oppenheimer as one of his “preferred understudies,” though she still contends with the unabashed chauvinism of her male colleagues. Despite the circumstances that separate them, the pair falls deeply in love; the affair is given room to grow when Alice’s fiancé, Warren, dies serving in the war and she subsequently discovers she is pregnant with Caleb’s child. In this powerful historical narrative, the obstacles to the protagonists’ union are legion, including Caleb’s reluctance to disclose the inauspiciousness of his origins. Robbins artfully creates an atmosphere of world-historical dread—only slowly, and with growing horror, do Caleb and Alice learn the full truth of what they are producing at Los Alamos. The story also charts the forlorn plight of Haruki Sato, a Japanese native of Hiroshima whose entire life is haunted by the atomic monstrosity to which both Caleb and Alice contribute. The novel is spangled with sparklingly insightful portraits of major scientific figures like Oppenheimer, Bohr, and Feynman, and the author demonstrates an impressive command of the relevant science as well. This is a moving blend of fact, fiction, and romance.
An absorbing novel that radiates historical rigor and emotional astuteness.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2024
ISBN: 9781639108961
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Alcove Press
Review Posted Online: June 5, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
These letters from some important executive Down Below, to one of the junior devils here on earth, whose job is to corrupt mortals, are witty and written in a breezy style seldom found in religious literature. The author quotes Luther, who said: "The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn." This the author does most successfully, for by presenting some of our modern and not-so-modern beliefs as emanating from the devil's headquarters, he succeeds in making his reader feel like an ass for ever having believed in such ideas. This kind of presentation gives the author a tremendous advantage over the reader, however, for the more timid reader may feel a sense of guilt after putting down this book. It is a clever book, and for the clever reader, rather than the too-earnest soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1942
ISBN: 0060652934
Page Count: 53
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1943
A bumpkin duke and a young woman belatedly acquiring a gentlewoman’s education make for an entertaining love story.
When a Regency duke would rather feed blancmange to his prize pig than pay court to prospective brides, it’s fortunate that the girl next door also likes pigs.
Anthony Farr, Duke of Radcliffe survived an unhappy first marriage and is deathly afraid of marrying again. He would rather spend his days pottering about on his farm and skipping stones on the lake with his 8-year-old son, Wakefield. But when a poor relation of the Penhallow family arrives in the neighborhood, she quickly becomes friends with both Anthony and Wakefield. Where Anthony is simple and even childlike, Jane Kent is just uneducated and still suffering from the traumas of spending her early life in poverty. In their first encounter, afternoon tea in the company of Jane’s relatives turns into a fierce competition. Jane and Anthony are both determined to devour more food than the other—all while maintaining a polite facade. It’s the first of many deftly funny scenes in the novel, although some of the jokes become a little repetitive, such as Wakefield’s frequent mispronunciations of long words. The dialogue, too, is both funny and a little tiresome, with long conversations that don’t significantly advance the plot. But the book has other strengths that set it apart from typical Regency romances. It’s body-positive. There are several scenes where Jane, Anthony, and Wakefield demolish decadent food. There’s also a little light sadomasochism, which feels surprising since the main characters are otherwise so childlike. And it's a nice portrait of what courtship is like for a dedicated single parent. The child and his needs are central to the love story.
A bumpkin duke and a young woman belatedly acquiring a gentlewoman’s education make for an entertaining love story.Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-285237-3
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Avon/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2020
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