The Twelfth Enchantment (2011)

I was delighted to find The Twelfth Enchantment, by one of my favorite historical fiction writers, David Liss - don't know how I missed this one for so long. As with other historical mystery-thrillers by Liss, the creation of very plausible fictional alternative explanations for "known" historical facts is really well done and compelling. Supernatural subjects are a departure from previous Liss novels, but handled in such a way that they don't compromise historical accuracy. Highly recommended! 

The Twelfth Enchantment takes place in 1812 England, mostly in Nottinghamshire, where the unsatisfactory but settled life of main fictional protagonist Lucy Derrick experiences a remarkable series of upheavals. She gradually learns that she has natural gifts of a metaphysical and supernatural nature, and that because of those gifts she has become the target of several nefarious schemes. Such things as alchemy, magic, and spirits were commonly accepted as factual in those days, and the story creates a series of events and characters based on those beliefs. At the novel's beginning, the reader is as ignorant of Lucy's imminent life changes as Lucy herself, so I won't spoil any of the surprise reveals here.  

A number of historical events and persons are accurately woven into the fictional narrative. Central to the story is the Luddite movement and its destructive campaign against mechanization of textile factories. Another 1812 event woven into the novel is the assassination of Prime Minister Spencer Percival, who appears briefly as a character, with a fictional involvement in the supernatural struggle that has overtaken Lucy and her family. And always in the background is the war against Napoleon.

Lord Byron, remembered now mainly as a poet and libertine, plays a prominent role, which Liss extrapolated from his defense of the Luddites in the House of Lords. The secretive Rosicrucian movement is also involved in the supernatural plot. 

Los Alamos (1997)

Re-reading and taking a fresh look at Los Alamos, by Joseph Kanon, was the second follow-up to a previous post about the film Oppenheimer. Los Alamos was Kanon's debut novel, and its success launched a writing career that has since produced ten more historical novels, with no signs of slowing production.

Like Martin Cruz Smith's Stallion Gate, the setting for Los Alamos is the leadup to the August, 1945 first successful atomic bomb test. The common backdrop provides commonalities in the cast of historical characters. J. Robert Oppenheimer is a fictionalized self in both novels, and both fictional main protagonists have an intimate and unofficial relationship with the project director. Most other historical characters appearing under their own names have very limited roles in the novel's plot, while other persons and events are represented by fictional equivalents. 

For example, the actual death of physicist Harry Daghlian from radiation poisoning, after he accidentally dropped a plutonium bomb core, was repurposed in Los Alamos into a fictional subplot involving a fictional physicist's involvement in the murder. That's about as far as Kanon ever strayed from the historical facts. The fictional additions to the historical record maintain plausibility.

Kanon's main protagonist is Michael Connolly, a New York City newspaperman who is brought in to investigate the murder of the bomb project's head of security. The book's plot is the familiar mystery/thriller type of story, and Kanon did it very well, with all the requisite twists and reveals.

Los Alamos and Stallion Gate are both fine novels, sharing a common historical backdrop, and both are recommended as fictionalized accounts of a slice of the historical events contained in the the movie Oppenheimer. High marks for both on all of the five criteria.

Stallion Gate (1986)

Following up on the previous post about the film Oppenheimer, it seemed like a good time to re-read and comment on Stallion Gate, a 1986 novel by Martin Cruz Smith (the cover image is from the paperback edition).

Stallion Gate was Smith's second novel, following his very successful debut with Gorky Park, but having no tie-in with or references to the earlier novel.

Smith's novel is a fictional biography of U.S. Army sergeant Joe Peña, member of a Pueblo community native to the Los Alamos area around the Trinity test site. When the story begins, Peña is in solitary confinement at Leavenworth, having run afoul of an officer. 

He is suddenly rescued by an Army intelligence officer and assigned to be aide and bodyguard to Joseph Oppenheimer. Agostino believes Oppenheimer is a Russian spy, and Peña must report anything he learns about the scientist - or be sent back to Leavenworth.

The novel is better at dramatic descriptions (perhaps exaggerations) of events than at scrupulous adherence to the historical record, but never strays into make-believe. 

Some of Peña's character development reminded me of the protagonist in From Here to Eternity. Both novels are set in the WWII military. Like Private Lee, Sergeant Peña follows instincts that constantly get him into hot water with his superiors, while remaining popular with non-military peers. Also like Lee, Peña is a boxer and, in both novels, one source of dramatic tension is the buildup to a big boxing match. A third similarity is that both characters are musicians. Peña is a jazz pianist, and Smith demonstrates an expansive knowledge of that genre.

Some historical Persons appear as themselves in Stallion Gate, while others are replaced by similar but fictional characters. For example, in the actual events, a Polish-British physicist named Joseph Rotblat quit the Trinity team for reasons of conscience after Germany surrendered. A fictional British scientist does that same thing in the novel.

Stallion Gate is a very entertaining historical novel that doesn't mess with the history (or the science). Highly recommended. Next up is a re-read and review of the 1997 Joseph Kanon novel Los Alamos.

Oppenheimer (2023 film)

 

The Wikipedia article calls Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer an "epic biographical thriller drama film". It also gets pretty good marks on its use of history, although the biographical arc introduces problems in the dramatic arc. The first half of the film ramps up the dramatic tension, culminating in the (literally) explosive climax of the Trinity A-bomb test. That makes the film's second half, dealing with Oppenheimer's post-Trinity career, seem anticlimactic. Still, the film deserves the honors it has received, and belongs on the top tier of Hollywood "historical" productions, where filmmakers are not bound by any constraints of historical accuracy. The film is about a person, not a big explosion, so kudos to Nolan for resisting the temptation to end the film with that dramatic mushroom cloud (or with Hiroshima).

The film also prompts a re-examination of that important period in history. Oppenheimer and those around him are fascinating characters, and many of them have also become the subject of scholarly biographies. I just finished reading The Pope of Physics by Gino Segré and Bettina Hoerlin, a fine 2016 biography of Enrico Fermi co-written by two children of Fermi colleagues. A re-reading and reviewing of two novels I read before these reviews began is also called for: Stallion Gate (1986) by Martin Cruz Smith, and Los Alamos (1997) by Joseph Kanon.