An Atomic Romance

Bobbie Ann Mason breaks a long silence (her last work of fiction, FEATHER CROWNS, was published in 1993) with this novel about Reed Futrell, a long-ago-divorced engineer who works at a uranium plant in the Midwest. Reed has an anti-nuclear-energy girlfriend named Julia (a biologist), a dog named Albert Einstein, and a motorcycle he loves. When he discovers that the plant is apparently leaking nuclear waste, Julia is enraged because he refuses to do anything about it, and suddenly Reed has a major conflict between his life and his work. Mason`s novel is about a man who must come to terms with the fact that life isn`t what he thought it was, and that the lessons of history can sometimes be as painful as they are fruitful. Copyright (C) Muze Inc. 2005. For personal use only. All rights reserved.