The Nuclear Age

October 1, 1985
Brilliant nuclear detonations and rising silver Titans have plagued William's dreams since his childhood during the Cuban missile crisis, when he fashioned a fallout shelter from the family ping-pong table. Thirty years later his fear has mushroomed into blinding paranoia, and when his wife announces she is leaving, he laces a hole in the backyard with dynamite, places her in it, and prepares to blow her up. Understand, however, that he is a good pacifist. The impending murder is really the Bomb's fault. "If you're sane, you see the Bomb's madness. If you see madness, you freak." Such is O'Brien's ceaseless harangue in The Nuclear Age, an awkward polemic sure to disappoint readers of Going After Cacciato . Sadly, The Nuclear Age is not in that league, with orchestrated excitement here replaced by a didactic monotone. Paul E. Hutchison, English Dept., Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park