Genre: Fiction
Themes: Marriage, research into atomic warfare, ornithology, crows
My rating (out of 5): ❤❤❤❤
The Atomic Weight of Love is a debut novel for Elizabeth J Church but it is so well crafted that you would imagine she had at least half a dozen previous novels already under her belt. The blurb inside the cover reveals that she practiced law for over thirty years and has written extensively for legal and scientific journals, so that will explain her precision in choice of words and the careful structure of her writing.
The book tells the story of Meridian Wallace, who studies ornithology at university, and develops a life-long interest in the behaviour of crows. She is an outstanding student and is well on track to achieve her doctorate when she meets and marries a physics professor, Alden Whetstone, who is almost old enough to be her father. Just as she is about to begin her post-graduate studies at Cornell University, Alden announces that he has decided to leave his teaching post and take up an atomic research position at Los Alamos in New Mexico. He asks Meridian to defer her studies for a year and come with him to live on the secure compound where the research is carried out. This is in the early 1940's when atomic research is in its infancy, and it is a wonderful opportunity for Alden to further his own career.
We then follow the story of their marriage as the couple's interests develop along different lines. Alden is fully engrossed in his highly secret field of work, and has little time or energy to notice the emotional toll the radical move has taken on his wife. Meridian continues to study crows by visiting the mountains on her own but she is constantly aware that she is losing her identity as a scientist and is now regarded by the community as simply a housewife. The other wives are also well educated but seem to have accepted their new supporting roles as wives and mothers more readily, and all seem happy to have sacrificed their own careers.
The book explores the needs of women, seen through the eyes of Meridian, and relevant feminist issues are bought in to the story at the relevant points in history. Meridian becomes a young woman just as the Second World War begins, and is a housewife during the 1950s and 60s when women in her social group were expected to follow their husband's lead and depend on them financially. As Alden is older, he has social values that date to a generation before Meridian's, and he has his own view of world order regarding who they should socialise with, and how they should conform to accepted behaviours. He wants a settled home with a wife who will quietly keep herself occupied while he works long hours at the laboratory.
Groups of women are examined with the same diligence as Meridian observes her crows, and the author breaks down the female pecking order to show how the group interacts with one another. Meridian is always the outsider as she has no children and did not complete her studies. Although the other women have given up careers they worked so hard to achieve, they still take their qualifications into account when assessing new members of the group, and Meridian is made to feel inferior for not finishing her education.
Despite her difficulties with the main social group Meridian does make meaningful relationships with certain individuals who act as sounding boards to the turmoil that is going on in her mind. Following her marriage, Meridian loses confidence in her own worth but through her middle years she gradually comes to understand the importance of fighting for what you believe in and making good things happen.
I enjoyed this book as it covers locations and topics that make unique. Elizabeth J Church makes the marriage relationship very real, as the story is not one sided, and we can see that Alden still loves Meridian despite his inability to understand how she feels a lot of the time. He is portrayed as a frustrating man but not the villain of the piece. It would be difficult to write about the personalities of highly intelligent people without first hand experience, so the author has drawn on the lives of her own family background as the daughter of a research chemist and a biologist for material. Her style is educated, yet easy to read, and the story line is quite addictive once you get started.
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