The Wives of Los Alamos

TaraShea Nesbit’s novel The Wives of Los Alamos is told in first-person plural, and yet it never seems like an experiment in a creative writing workshop. By describing how we came to Los Alamos by train, and car, and airplane, or how the water shortage left us unable to wash our hair, the narration is simultaneously small and large. It’s a chorus of individual experiences, telling one story. Throughout the book, she blends details of daily life, like a husband tired and cranky after a long day at work, with the work going on all around, creating the bombs that killed millions.

The wives follow their scientist husbands to an undisclosed location for work on a secret project. Some are faculty wives or new brides or mothers of young children, but the husbands are unabashed nerds, starting work on a well-funded and exciting project. In this way, the marriages are similar, which makes the plural narrator work really well. The husbands all working on an interesting, if secret, project, and the wives trying to make a home life in the desert, despite limited water, irregular commissary supplies, and no civilian jobs or services. Scenes of frustrating commissary shortages and the excitement of long-distance letters reminded me of expat life.

Family life on a secret military project is a fascinating premise, and the book inspired me to learn more about the history. The end of the book focuses on the wives and children dealing with the aftermath of the bomb, and trying to understand what their husbands and fathers did.