The Atomic Weight of Love by Elizabeth J. Church

Though not as groundbreaking as Virginia Woolf’s A Room Of One’s Own, or The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Elizabeth Church’s debut historical novel The Atomic Weight of Love, published in 2016, beautifully captures the life of a woman seeking autonomy and agency over her personal and professional choices while living in the southwest in the 1940’s and 1950’s.

Meridian Wallace is a precocious only child whose curiosity about the natural world consumes her. Her parents indulge and engage with her as if she is an adult, ableit a small one. When Meridian's father dies of a heart attack at age 43, Meridian and her mother stagnate emotionally. But Meri perseveres and pursues a degree in physics at the University of Chicago with the hopes of becoming an ornithologist. The complex communication patterns of crows captivate her. Without really understanding all of her motivations, she marries her physics professor Alden Whetstone - a man that age of her father at his death - and moves to Los Alamos, New Mexico where her new husband is working on the government’s top-secret Manhattan Project.

Though Alden Whetstone is a kind and caring person, he directs and dominates the activities of his wife. When they first meet, he seems attracted to Meri’s brain. But by the time Meri moves with him to New Mexico, he has forgotten Meri’s impressive intellectual capabilities and is surprised that she is not finding fulfillment in cooking and sewing. Other academic wives with advanced degrees adapt to their limited roles, but Meri struggles to find any fulfillment in the suffocating social norms of this scientific community. When Meri defers an opportunity to pursue her Ph.D. at Cornell, Alden seems indifferent. Though Alden understands nuclear physics, he cannot understand the idea that Meridian is his equal. Even nice men can be sexist.

They are both victims of the times, but he has the power and she does not.

When Meri meets Clay, a Vietnam war veteran ten years younger, he exposes her to a new perspective on the world. Clay’s sense of freedom and empowerment embolden Meri and encourage her to think about her life in a different way. Clay symbolizes the generation that repudiated the prior cultural conventions and ushered in a new social order. Nonetheless, Meri loves both men and choosing between them weighs heavy.

I enjoyed this thought provoking book and it reminded me why the women’s movement of the 1960’s took hold with such ferocious energy. In addition, one can feel Elizabeth Church’s love of the topography of New Mexico and the birds that inhabit the landscape. At times the dialogue seems forced, but overall I recommend this engaging book about yearning for romantic love, intellectual engagement, and personal fulfillment in a world governed by policies and societal expectations that stifle the potential of women.