America's Children Paperback - 2002

by James Thackara

The Book of Kings established James Thackara as a novelist of extraordinary range and vision, and became one of the publishing sensations of recent years. America's Children is James Thackara's first novel, written in 1984 and first published in the United States last year in hardcover. It tells the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer, whose life is the perfect symbol of man's enlightened conquest of nature, his crisis of guilt, and his struggle for responsibility.

America's Children is a multi-layered story of Christian and Marxist values; of love of family and land; of invisible high-energy particles and Pentagon technocrats; of thrilling scientific discovery and the unspeakable reality of Hiroshima. A novel for our age, America's Children is a sublime and truly American story of the theft of atomic fire, the agonies of political and moral conscience, and the future of our planet in a nuclear world.

"America's Children is at the same time entertaining and disturbing, a thought provoking narrative treatment of a significant figure in world history." (Robert Allen Papinchak, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

"The story of Oppenheimer's life is dramatic in both its rise and fall." (Tom LeClair, Book Magazine)

"With fine psychological acuity and an exalted sense of drama, Thackara charts Oppenheimer's terrible journey." (Booklist, starred review)