Universe of Two

March 1, 2020
A story of wartime romance amid the moral quandaries of the Manhattan Project. Kiernan is known for tackling big topics--the depredations of war (The Baker's Secret, 2017, etc.) and scientific overreach (The Curiosity, 2013)--and this novel attempts to follow suit. When Brenda Dubie, a talented, conservatory-bound organist, meets Charlie Fish, she's not impressed by the gangling math whiz despite his Harvard degree. Their accounts of what ensues alternate: hers in first person, at times looking back from the vantage point of an old woman, and his, in third person. Charlie is working on top-secret wartime projects at the University of Chicago, but his superiors are also not impressed by him--he's banished to a basement, where he, and we, learns far more than we'd ever hoped to about the niceties of soldering electrical circuits. Egged on by a mother who regrets her own shrewish behavior now that her husband and son are off to war, Brenda cautiously embarks on a courtship with Charlie. But as Brenda strives to suppress her spunkiness in order to support a vision of masculinity that doesn't even appear to be Charlie's priority, Charlie is sent to New Mexico. Turns out all that soldering instilled just the detonation know-how required for the nascent A-bomb, aka The Gadget. Charlie, kind and humane, hates the idea of being, in effect, the Trigger (his nickname) for civilization's potential destruction. His internal conflict is far more interesting than the romance. Brenda's retrospective musings reveal a long marriage to Charlie. Kiernan overcompensates for that loss of suspense, interposing obstacles in the path of true love--a half-hearted detour with a handsome airman on Brenda's part--but they're mostly snits and misunderstandings that aren't believably characteristic of either protagonist. Kiernan's view of American women's roles in World War II seems outdated even for that time. Contemporaneous accounts of the homefront belie his apparent supposition that all women did was pine for manly, battle-hardened men. This drama of nuclear dawn fails to launch.

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March 30, 2020
Kiernan’s lackluster fourth novel (after 2017’s The Baker’s Secret) concerns 19-year-old mathematician Charlie Fish, who’s called away from his sweetheart, Brenda, to play a pivotal role in constructing the atomic bomb. Charlie bonds with Brenda at her family’s Chicago music store during his breaks from working on a secret government project at a nearby university. When Charlie is recruited as part of the team sent to Los Alamos, Brenda doesn’t understand the scope of Charlie’s work, and doesn’t cope well with his absence and cryptic letters. Despite this, the two pine for one another, and Brenda accepts a job as a Santa Fe church organist to be closer to him. Burdened with guilt over his work’s destructive power and sworn to secrecy, Charlie relies on Brenda for strength before and especially after the bombings in Japan. The details of Los Alamos are fascinating, but characterization isn’t Kiernan’s strong suit; he only scratches the surface of his protagonists, and the story of their courtship, which takes up a good chunk of the novel, falls flat. This feels like a generic love story with the Manhattan Project tacked on for emotional heft.

April 1, 2020
Kiernan (The Baker's Secret, 2017) movingly charts a couple's relationship alongside the development of WWII's Manhattan Project. In 1943 Chicago, fun-loving Brenda Dubie first meets Charlie Fish, a skinny mathematician (inspired by the historical Charles Fisk), when he visits her family's music shop. Over time, Charlie's increasing technical expertise leads to his reluctant transfer to Los Alamos. Ignorant of his top-secret and pivotal role in building detonators, Brenda urges Charlie to do his patriotic duty. The characterizations feel bracingly real. Brenda, whose youthful, self-centered haughtiness prevents her from appreciating Charlie's finer qualities, and Charlie, whose earnest devotion to his work and Brenda drives him to actions with ramifications he doesn't understand until later. Brenda is a challenging heroine, but her wistful reminiscences as she looks back decades later demonstrate her emotional growth. Kiernan recreates the zeitgeist of America leading up to the atomic bomb on a national and personal level: the eager anticipation of wartime's end, the grimly fascinating science, and the growing sense of guilt and dread. Simultaneously tender and hard-hitting, this riveting story offers much to reflect upon.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)

May 1, 2020

Chicago, 1943. The world is at war, and Brenda Dulcie has yet to learn how self-centered she is. When Charlie Fisk comes into her life, she isn't quite ready to settle down. Charlie Fisk is steady and quiet, but not until he leaves for New Mexico does she realize the depth of her feelings. Brenda is the one thing that keeps Charles going as he works in the isolation of Los Alamos. When all the arcs and electrical work are revealed to be for a weapon beyond what has ever been seen, he is horrified, and only Brenda is able to pull him back to near-normalcy and a fulfilling life. Based loosely on the life of mathematician and organ-maker Charles B. Fisk, this fascinating novel delves into the guilt and remorse that wracked him for his part in the development of the atomic bomb. The story moves slowly but steadily, highlighting daily life during World War II. The two main characters are complex and flawed, but when they come together, their world is in harmony. VERDICT General readers and those interested in the time period will enjoy this brutally honest novel by the author of The Baker's Secret. [See Prepub Alert, 11/4/19.]--Pamela O'Sullivan, Coll. at Brockport Lib., SUNY

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