Trinity, Louisa Hall
Trinity, Louisa Hall
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Trinity
A Novel

Author: Louisa Hall

Narrator: Cassandra Campbell, David Colacci, Saskia Maarleveld, John Lee, Brittany Pressley, Yetta Gottesman, Charlie Thurston, Amy Landon

Unabridged: 9 hr 9 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Ecco

Published: 10/16/2018


Synopsis

From the acclaimed author of Speak comes a kaleidoscopic novel about Robert Oppenheimer—father of the atomic bomb—as told by seven fictional characters.J. Robert Oppenheimer was a brilliant scientist, a champion of liberal causes, and a complex and often contradictory character. He loyally protected his Communist friends, only to later betray them under questioning. He repeatedly lied about love affairs. And he defended the use of the atomic bomb he helped create, before ultimately lobbying against nuclear proliferation.Through narratives that cross time and space, a set of characters bears witness to the life of Oppenheimer, from a secret service agent who tailed him in San Francisco, to the young lover of a colleague in Los Alamos, to a woman fleeing McCarthyism who knew him on St. John. As these men and women fall into the orbit of a brilliant but mercurial mind at work, all consider his complicated legacy while also uncovering deep and often unsettling truths about their own lives.In this stunning, elliptical novel, Louisa Hall has crafted a breathtaking and explosive story about the ability of the human mind to believe what it wants, about public and private tragedy, and about power and guilt. Blending science with literature and fiction with biography, Trinity asks searing questions about what it means to truly know someone, and about the secrets we keep from the world and from ourselves.

About Louisa Hall

Louisa Hall grew up in Philadelphia.  She is the author of the novels Speak and The Carriage House, and her poems have been published in The New Republic, Southwest Review, and other journals.  She is a professor at the University of Iowa, and the Western Writer in Residence at Montana State University.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Barbara on June 25, 2023

Trinity is historical fiction that provides glimpses of J. Robert Oppenheimer, 'the father of the atomic bomb', from the perspective of some of his contemporaries. First, a brief overview of the (real) historical Oppenheimer. Julius Robert Oppenheimer, born in 1904, was a brilliant American theoreti......more

Goodreads review by Jessica on May 07, 2018

When you start thinking about Oppenheimer, there is one big place your mind tends to go: how do you live the rest of your life after creating what may be the end of humanity? How do you live knowing all the people who have died because of your discovery? How do you separate the scientific search of......more

Goodreads review by Cherisa on October 28, 2022

An interesting way to learn about the midwife of the atom bomb, through what the author calls 7 testimonials, people whose lives intersected in some minor ways with Oppenheimer’s but collectively illustrate the man, his dedication to science, and his flaws. Her choice of witnesses is provocative, ma......more

Goodreads review by Jill on January 02, 2019

How should we think about Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb? Was he a thirsty seeker of knowledge, a scientist who believed it was one’s ultimate duty to discover what is unknown? Was he a betrayer of friends, his wife, his country, the man who unleashed the mighty power of the ultim......more

Goodreads review by Jill on January 02, 2019

How should we think about Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb? Was he a thirsty seeker of knowledge, a scientist who believed it was one’s ultimate duty to discover what is unknown? Was he a betrayer of friends, his wife, his country, the man who unleashed the mighty power of the ultim......more