DISCUSSION QUESTIONS •1 Rosalind Porter is an independent, intelligent woman trying to make a difference in a maledominated field. Do you relate to Rosalind’s societal struggles? If so, how?
•2 What was your reaction upon learning about Rosalind’s upbringing? How do you think this shaped her into the woman she became? How about Louisa?
•3
•6 How do you feel Rosalind handled the FBI investigation? Is there anything you would have done differently if you were in her position?
•7 Were you surprised by Weaver’s confession to Rosalind on their favorite bench? What did you initially think he was going to tell her?
•8
Who did you empathize with or relate to the most in the novel?
How did you feel about Louisa’s confession to Rosalind about why she is unhappy in her marriage? Do you think her feelings are a product of the 1950s or similarly felt across generations?
•4
•9
How does World War II affect each character, specifically Rosalind, Weaver, and Szydlo? What similarities can you draw? What differences?
Szydlo and Weaver have very different personalities, yet Rosalind feels strongly for each man. What qualities do you think drew Rosalind to them? At the end of the day, do you think she made the right choice between Szydlo and Weaver? Why or why not?
•5 On page 104, Zeke tells Rosalind, “I’m afraid I’ll never love a man as much as I love you.” How do you feel about their friendship? Do you have a Zeke in your life? A Rosalind?
• 10 What did you think of Rosalind’s decision at the end of the novel?
A conversation with ATOMIC LOVE IS YOUR FIFTH NOVEL. WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO WRITE THIS STORY? DID THIS WRITING PROCESS DIFFER IN ANY WAY FROM YOUR PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE? I always wanted to write about a female scientist in the era when it was a struggle to be accepted in a man’s field. My mother was a biochemist trained at the University of Chicago. She spent a lifetime
JENNIE FIELDS
proud of the fact that her name appeared on an important cancer paper of the era. But like many women of her time, she gave up her career when she married. She spent the rest of her life aching for science. I wanted to create in Rosalind Porter a woman who almost loses access to the field that she loves and is forced to stand up for her right to participate. The Manhattan Project, too, has always interested me. My mother’s cousin was part of it—a clerical worker at the Met Lab. The fact that the first atomic reaction—a dangerous experiment—took place in rooms beneath the bleachers of the University of Chicago’s Stagg Field, right in the middle of a crowded city, has always fascinated me.
Though I looked at writing another biographical novel, my heart wasn’t in it. It was important to create my own story this time, not tied to a life already lived. I wanted to tell a tale about two deeply injured people who find and heal each other. It was a freeing experience.
' ROBERT BRUCE
My last novel was based on the life of Edith Wharton, the writer. I had to stay steadfastly true to her diaries and letters. Sometimes she did things that were hard to justify, for instance her embarrassing teenaged reaction (at the age of forty-five) to her love affair with Morton Fullerton. I’d always thought of Edith Wharton as brainy, regal, and noble even. So it was painful to put her truth on the page, as human as it was.
UNLIKE YOUR OTHER NOVELS, ATOMIC LOVE IS DEEPLY ROOTED IN SCIENCE AND SURROUNDS A POIGNANT EVENT IN HISTORY—THE MANHATTAN PROJECT. HOW DID YOU RESEARCH BOTH THE HISTORICAL AND SCIENTIFIC ASPECTS OF THE BOOK? I read stacks of books about the Manhattan Project and the atomic bomb. Richard Rhodes’s masterwork, The Making of the Atomic Bomb, was particularly helpful. As was a memoir by Leona Woods, a protégé of Enrico Fermi’s and the only young woman who was involved in the first atomic reaction. Unlike Rosalind, Woods believed to the day she died that the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were essential to ending the war. But many of the scientists who worked alongside her were horrified. They’d believed they were creating this terrible weapon as a deterrent. They never expected the bomb would be utilized and they experienced guilt for the rest of their lives. Newspaper accounts are always invaluable to me when I research history—they’re a guide to the social attitudes of the era, to fashion, and to the way historic events were imparted to the masses. I turned to them many times.
I WANTED TO TELL A TALE ABOUT TWO DEEPLY INJURED PEOPLE WHO FIND AND HE AL EACH OTHER .
HOW DID YOU CRAFT THE NOVEL’S NUANCED HEROINE, ROSALIND PORTER? When I write novels, I write in layers. I learn about my characters as I put them on my page, and with each draft, their stories deepen. I knew I would write about a woman working in a department store, cut off from her true livelihood in science. But Rosalind’s loneliness and sense of displacement grew with each draft. Her relationship with Weaver became more complex. And her emotional connection to Charlie came into focus. The backstory of her being orphaned at a young age, and how her sister took her in, giving up her own aspirations, came later and felt organic and right. I believe a lot of what ends up on the page comes from the author’s subconscious. Interestingly, the stuff I’ve never planned often ends up feeling the most profound and satisfying.
WHAT WAS YOUR FAVORITE SCENE IN THE NOVEL AND WHY? I love the scene where Charlie helps walk a drunken Stash home at two a.m., only to be confronted by Stash’s wife, his first love, Linda. It seemed key for Charlie to make peace with the one person who has hurt him most, that they should have a poignant moment together, freeing him to move forward.
WHEN READING CHARLIE SZYDLO’S CHAPTERS, THE READER IS TRANSPORTED BACK TO THE HORRIFIC FRONT LINES OF WORLD WAR II. WHAT WAS YOUR WRITING PROCESS WHEN CREATING THESE SCENES AND HIS UNIQUE PERSPECTIVE AFTER THE WAR? While doing my research, some of the most moving and interesting accounts were a collection of memories from American soldiers who’d spent time
as prisoners of war in Japanese camps. The life in those camps was particularly brutal and different from the experiences of prisoners of war in European camps. The Japanese signed the Geneva Convention but never ratified it. They didn’t feel bound to protect their prisoners. Life was terrifying and unpredictable. While no one in the histories I read had their hands burned like Charlie did, people were often beaten or died for no reason, and even the simplest human needs like basic food or warmth were often denied. I chose to write those scenes in the present tense with lots of sensory details so they would feel as immediate as they would have to Charlie as he experienced his PTSD.
WHAT WAS THE MOST DIFFICULT OBSTACLE WHILE WRITING ATOMIC LOVE? While I’ve tried to make all my novels page-turners, I’ve never before written a book that relies on suspense. That means the need to continually move the plot forward and surprise the reader. I am not, by nature, a plot-based writer. I consider myself more of a character-focused writer, and even in Atomic Love, my characters’ personal growth is what interests me most. So suspense and plot focus were my biggest challenge. I also must give my editor, Tara Singh Carlson, credit for one of the plot’s most interesting twists. It takes a village!
man healing from the war, having lost the use of his hand in a prisoner of war camp, his moral correctness and sense of isolation, even his extreme height just came to me. Sometimes miracles occur while you’re writing, and for me, the creation of Charlie was just that.
IS THERE ONE THING IN PARTICULAR YOU WOULD LIKE READERS TO TAKE AWAY FROM ATOMIC LOVE? That women have always had to fight for their place in the world. The most brilliant women of other eras were no more content with their designated positions in society than the brilliant women of today who are denied access to jobs, respect, and equal pay.
WITHOUT GIVING ANYTHING AWAY, DID YOU ALWAYS KNOW HOW THE STORY WOULD END? Yes and no. I knew what would happen between Charlie and Rosalind but I didn’t know how science would figure into the ending. The truth is, if I knew exactly how a novel would unfold, I’d lose my momentum. Just like a reader reads forward with anticipation, I write forward to find out what will happen.
DO YOU HAVE A FAVORITE CHARACTER IN THE NOVEL? IF SO, WHO AND WHY?
WHAT’S NEXT FOR YOU?
As soon as I started working on Atomic Love, I fell in love with Charlie Szydlo. It’s funny, but his entire story came to me full cloth, as though a real person was telling me his life story. The idea of a
I’m working on a book about a woman whose parents die unexpectedly and she has to unravel a terrible secret they’ve hidden from her all her life. But, like all my novels, exactly what will happen, how it will evolve, will be a surprise to me too.
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1. C: Baloney cake Ah, the beauty of baloney cake! The food pages of women’s magazines in the 1950s seem to feature baloney and cheese in every other recipe. Imagine being handed a slice of this on a paper plate. Yikes!
2.
A: Alfred Kinsey’s Sexual Behavior in the Human Female
Alfred Kinsey’s Sexual Behavior in the Human Male came out in 1948, and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female came out in 1953. Some husbands hid the volumes from their wives. Others left them as presents on their pillows. And women passed the volumes among themselves. It was the number one whispered topic for a long, long time!
3.
B: Patricia Highsmith’s Strangers on a Train
Before it became a Hitchcock movie, Patricia Highsmith’s Strangers on a Train was an immensely popular book. A haunting tale about an ordinary man desperate to get out of his marriage meeting another man on a train. The other man suggests they swap murders so neither will be suspected. The main character thinks he’s joking. He’s not. Imagine the book club discussion!
4.
A: Atomic Cocktails
After the Russians created their own A-bomb in 1949, people were drinking liquor, liquor, and more liquor. To cope, a nervous populace tried to lighten the concept of “atomic.” People decorated their houses in cool atomic-age design. And some bars starting selling Atomic Cocktails. Since people drank a lot in those days, surely these cocktails also showed up at book club meetings. Check out our Atomic Cocktail recipe in this kit for your book club when you discuss Atomic Love! Answers below
a. Alfred Kinsey’s Sexual Behavior in the Human Female b. Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar c. Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique d. Alice Walker’s The Color Purple 2. Which of these books would a 1950s woman feel like she had to read but hide from her husband? a. b. c. d.
Foie gras Shrimp-flavored ice cream Baloney cake Licorice punch
1. What would a woman serve to her book group in 1950?
a. b. c. d.
Atomic Cocktails Manhattans Fuzzy Navels Fanta
4. What were people drinking in the 1950s? a. b. c. d.
William Styron’s Sophie’s Choice Patricia Highsmith’s Strangers on a Train Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale Toni Morrison’s The Song of Solomon
3. What book would book clubs have read in the 1950s?
QUIZ YOUR BOOK CLUB TO SEE HOW FAMILIAR THEY ARE WITH THESE 1950s FACTS!
IN SPIRED BY ATO M I C LOVE
TRIVIA
ATO M I C C O C K TA I L
INGREDIENTS
DIRECTIONS
1 1/2 ounces vodka
Combine the vodka, brandy, and sherry in a mixing glass half-filled with cracked ice.
1 1/2 ounces brandy 1 teaspoon sherry (amontillado or oloroso) 1/2
ounce Champagne (or other sparkling wine)
Gently stir until chilled and properly diluted, about 20 seconds. Julep strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Top with Champagne. Garnish with a lemon, and enjoy.
Lemon wedge (as garnish)
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Source: Greg Henry, sippitysup.com/the-atomic-cocktail-las-vegas