Mini Review: The Wives of Los Alamos, TaraShea Nesbit

When the top physicists in the United States – and many from the rest of the world – were assigned to Los Alamos to build the atomic bomb, so were their wives. Though their experiences were different, much of it was the same; the arrival, the mystery, the lies, and the way that life went on. The wives, strangers at first, grow to know one another and to rely on each other in the absence of the men who used to influence so many of their activities. This book takes an unusual perspective, that of all of the women, to highlight the differences amongst them while telling the story of the events that shaped their lives.

In this book, there is no “I”. There is only “we”, as in the collective. All of the women had to keep their lives secret from families and friends elsewhere. All of the women had to lie about what their husbands were doing and where exactly they lived. All of the women were mostly left to their own devices in a dusty, half-built town, often with children to raise and houses to maintain all by themselves, wondering what exactly had led them to this point in their lives. And yet somehow Nesbit does manage to get individuality across, a reminder that every woman is different.

The book takes us through most of the time that the scientists of the Manhattan Project and their wives spent at Los Alamos, telling the story through lots of different eyes rather than just a single pair. I’ve had an interest in this since I read Age of Radiance a few months ago, and I liked getting the perspective of the many women who lived through this rather than just the mostly male scientists. This is naturally fictionalised, but I liked how it got into the heads of so many women, imagining what this experience must have been like. Really enjoyable and recommended.

I received this book for free for review consideration.