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Beautiful,
Interesting,
Brilliant

2 reviews

Evidence of Things Unseen: A Novel
by Marianne Wiggins

Published: 2004-06-02
Paperback : 400 pages
3 members reading this now
7 clubs reading this now
1 member has read this book
Recommended to book clubs by 2 of 2 members
This poetic novel, by the acclaimed author of John Dollar, describes America at the brink of the Atomic Age. In the years between the two world wars, the future held more promise than peril, but there was evidence of things unseen that would transfigure our unquestioned trust in a safe ...
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Introduction

This poetic novel, by the acclaimed author of John Dollar, describes America at the brink of the Atomic Age. In the years between the two world wars, the future held more promise than peril, but there was evidence of things unseen that would transfigure our unquestioned trust in a safe future.

Fos has returned to Tennessee from the trenches of France. Intrigued with electricity, bioluminescence, and especially x-rays, he believes in science and the future of technology. On a trip to the Outer Banks to study the Perseid meteor shower, he falls in love with Opal, whose father is a glassblower who can spin color out of light.

Fos brings his new wife back to Knoxville where he runs a photography studio with his former Army buddy Flash. A witty rogue and a staunch disbeliever in Prohibition, Flash brings tragedy to the couple when his appetite for pleasure runs up against both the law and the Ku Klux Klan. Fos and Opal are forced to move to Opal’s mother’s farm on the Clinch River, and soon they have a son, Lightfoot. But when the New Deal claims their farm for the TVA, Fos seeks work at the Oak Ridge Laboratory—Site X in the government’s race to build the bomb.

And it is there, when Opal falls ill with radiation poisoning, that Fos’s great faith in science deserts him. Their lives have traveled with touching inevitability from their innocence and fascination with "things that glow" to the new world of manmade suns.

Hypnotic and powerful, Evidence of Things Unseen constructs a heartbreaking arc through twentieth-century American life and belief.

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  "Evidence of Things Unseen"by Mary M. (see profile) 04/09/15

The images that the novel evokes are see-able by the reader partially because the characters do come right off the page with their dialogue and their insights into life.
I loved this book
... (read more)

 
  "Beautiful, I will be reading this again!"by Jennifer F. (see profile) 05/18/09

Such beautiful, poetic language. I didn't want this book to end. The story kept me glued and the writing seemed like a dance.
My favorite part is that the book was written of an age and ab
... (read more)

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