Oh pure and radiant heart

463 Pages·2005·1.79 MB·English

by  Fermi

OH PURE AND RADIANT HEART
OH PURE AND RADIANT HEART
Lydia Millet
Soft Skull Press
Brooklyn, NY | 2005
Oh Pure and Radiant Heart © 2005 Lydia Millet
Book Design: David Janik
Cover Art: “Trinity 2 (21kt, NM, 16.Jul.1945)” Copyright ©1995–2003
Gregory Walker ([email protected]), Creator of Trinity Atomic Web Site.
Author Photo: Adam Frank Published by Soft Skull Press 71 Bond Street Brooklyn, NY 11217
Distributed by Publishers Group West 1.800.788.3123
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Millet, Lydia, 1968– Oh pure and radiant heart / Lydia
Millet.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-593763-13-8
1. Oppenheimer, J. Robert, 1904-1967—Fiction. 2. Fermi, Enrico, 1901-1954—Fiction. 3. Nuclear
physicists—Fiction. 4. Women librarians—Fiction. 5. Santa Fe (N.M.)—Fiction. 6. Szilard, Leo—
Fiction. 7. Celebrities—Fiction. 8. Atomic bomb—Fiction. 9. Time travel—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3563.I42175O37 2005
813’.54—dc22
2005001028
Behold, I have set before you an open door, and no man can shut it.
—Revelation 3:8
CONTENTS
I. THE MEANING OF THE PORKPIE HAT
II. WHY TALL PEOPLE FEAR DWARVES
III. THE DEAD MAINTAIN THEIR GOOD LOOKS
IV. A VAST INFANT
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
For their insight and critical help I wish to thank Jenny Offill, Kieran
Suckling, and Kate Bernheimer. For their forbearance as readers, my thanks to
Saralaine Millet and Maria Massie. And I am deeply grateful to Richard Eoin
Nash for his perseverance and conviction.
For her help with the Japanese language and her hospitality in Tokyo, thanks
to Nerissa Moray; for help and guidance in Hiroshima, thanks to Andrew Hill;
and for her many social connections, thanks to Alycia Rossiter. For their
kindness and interpretive skills, thanks to Kazue Moshi Ichi in Hiroshima and
Keiko Shirahama in Nagasaki. Thanks to Hibakusha Tomei Ozaki for his
eyewitness account of the bombing of Nagasaki.
Thanks also to Tonya Turner-Carroll and Michael Carroll for their gracious
hospitality in Santa Fe, to Debbie Bingham for her help at the White Sands
Missile Range, and Peter Galvin and Melanie Duchin for their knowledge of the
Grateful Dead. I am also grateful to Brian Segee for his advice on Freedom of
Information Act matters, Evelin and Mike Sullivan for their assistance with
particle physics, and Ernest B. Williams, tour guide at the Nevada Test Site, for
his inspiration.
I
THE MEANING OF THE PORKPIE HAT