On Oppenheimer: A Conversation with Louisa Hall on Her Novel, “Trinity”

JANUARY 3, HALL’S NEW NOVEL, Trinity (Ecco), traces the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer, father of the atomic bomb, as glimpsed by seven characters who came into contact with him at different times and in different places, starting with the spy who followed him from Los Alamos on a forbidden trip to San Francisco in 1943, and ending with the woman who interviewed him as he was dying in Princeton in 1966. I didn’t set out to foreground the feminine aspect of this story, but it definitely did happen; the women in the book are the most interesting characters to me, as well. And if we’re looking for reasons to explain why Oppenheimer built the bomb, despite his early liberalism, there’s reason to think that we should turn to the women in his life.

Source: lareviewofbooks.org