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Bobby and the A-Bomb Factory: Growing up on the Banks of the Columbia

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Deep life in middle america

Bobby and the A-Bomb Factory: Growing up on the Banks of the Columbia
Bob Myers
Manufacturer: iUniverse, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

General | Historical | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

Memoirs | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0595324983

Book Description

Bobby was born in the middle of the Cold War in the shadow of the big A-bomb factory which employed his father, a poor farm boy made good, This was the factory that made the Nagasaki bomb. Stumbling through childhood, Bobby is unaware that the area where he is growing up was once the home of the proud Plateau Indian culture, sharing with the bomb factory a deep dependence on the mighty Columbia River coursing through eastern Washington.

In this memoir, at times touching, at times troubling, at times exhilarating, a grown-up Bob traces his father's family back to the great-grandparents who eked out a destitute existence on the South Dakota prairie, and retells his father's astonishing leap from crippled farm boy to Ph.D. physicist working on the nation's most advanced weapons programs. Bob presents a deeply personal account of how his father tried, with mixed success, to balance his roles as scientist, husband, father, and church member. He pulls together the threads connecting him to the Indians whose unseen culture surrounded him as a child, their great spiritual and political leaders Smohalla and Chief Joseph, and the missionaries who came west in the 1800s to bring them the white man's religion.

"Bobby..." goes on to recount disturbing stories of the corners cut to get the A-bomb ready to drop on Japan, pauses to ponder the nature of human disease, and paints an unforgettable picture of daily life in mid-century America.

Customer Reviews:

Deep life in middle america.......2005-03-30

Bobby and the A-bomb Factory is the personal account of a child's early years in 50's and early 60's america. A sober style, at ease with short-cuts and edifying contrasts, is not the least of this little opus' qualities.

In particular, Myers' parti-pris of contextualising his story by colliding two among america's most foundational adventures, namely the development of a nuclear force that can destroy humanity and the eradication of Idians nations, works very well. These historical events of momentous proportions serve as bitter yet enlightening backdrop to some key moments in the history of the Myers familly, living through their middle-class life, framed by suburbia and mormonism. There is neither happiness nor sadness there, but small reflections on religion, dealing with psychological and social wastelands, and the difficulties for a child to find a meanignful place in his environment.

By small touches, with a real talent for segueing into edifying historical anecdotes that provide a je ne sais quoi of extra meaning, of relatedness, to this little story of a rather disturbed yet gifted child, Myers manages to universalise his story. We're involved, not so much because we identify with this slightly weird kid in this dull environment (though some will), but precisely because we realise how the meaning that most of us like to give to our lives can also derive contemplatively a posteriori from situating ourselves in a context, a history, of our chosing.

It's an unpretentious and atlernatively lively, contemplative, educative and enlightening fast read.

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