First published 2005
Reed spends his days as an engineer at a uranium enrichment facility in the American heartland. The radioactive exposure that comes with the job doesn't faze him much. He treats the incidents as occupational hazards, part of the routine. His girlfriend Julia sees things differently. She worries about what the radiation might be doing to his body, to their future together. Her concerns create tension between them as Reed downplays the risks he faces daily. Then workers discover something disturbing at the plant site. Frogs with deformities turn up, their twisted bodies raising new questions about contamination. The discovery forces Reed to confront what he has been avoiding. The malformed creatures become impossible to dismiss as easily as he has dismissed his own exposure. Mason explores how people adapt to invisible dangers and what happens when those dangers become visible in ways that cannot be ignored.
Genres: fiction, science-fiction, literary-fiction, contemporary
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, unreliable-narrator
Setting: American Heartland, United States
Period: Contemporary
Audio Cassette · Blackstone Pub
Content warnings: medical-trauma