I have fallen terribly behind again. So much for resolutions. Maybe I should resolve to make entries short and to the point - did I like it and why, would I recommend it to this group or that - or to the other group with reservations.
I liked this one a lot. An acquaintance at church recommended it (the same Sunday that another acquaintance recommended the Julia Child book). She had lived and worked for a number of years at Los Alamos and found, as I did, that The Wives of Los Alamos was a sorry excuse for a novel and gave no insight whatsoever into the Manhattan Project days of the labs. She thought that this one was a much better look at the place, people, and period.
The book focuses on two people: Dorothy McKibbin who was the face of the lab to newcomers and the world during the closed years and Robert Oppenheimer, the laboratory director. That is not to imply that other members of the collection of brilliant and volatile people who, for better or worse, made it all happen were slighted in the telling. The famous feud between Oppenheimer and Teller gets plenty of coverage, as do the issues with housing and schooling for the children of the families relocated to the mountain. The situation of the wives and kids was supposed to be the subject of Wives, but this book made it all much more immediate in the direct narrative and names of those involved.
McKibbin ran the office in Santa Fe where everyone, but everyone, in-processed. It was also the clearing point for all shipping and receiving (a lot more receiving than shipping) and a handy place to park babies while doing a little shopping. One of the more entertaining threads concerns the baby boom up on the mountain - the population of scientists and workmen and their families increased far beyond the original expectations - somehow they had neglected in planning to consider that young couples with limited options for entertainment would soon produce another generation, requiring the lab to add an ob/gyn and pediatrician to the staff.
Oppenheimer comes across as enigmatic and charismatic. His bizarre marriage gets plenty of play, as does his gift for creating controversy.
My future boss got a fair amount of coverage as one of the rabble-rousers among the scientists. The concerns of the scientists about what they were doing was a revelation. There was a point at which they considered the possibility that the nuclear reaction would set of a chain reaction which would ignite the atmosphere of the planet. Think about going to work with that in your mind.
Did I say "short" commentaries? Oh well, I really did like it.
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