First published 2000
Max studies physics and biology at Cambridge when he meets Eleanor, a German Jewish woman whose radical politics will reshape both their lives. Their love story unfolds against the twentieth century's most turbulent decades. Max pursues his scientific interests while Eleanor throws herself into political movements that pull them across continents. They find themselves separated and reunited as history sweeps them from the laboratories of Cambridge to the streets of Berlin, from the battlefields of the Spanish Civil War to the vast expanse of the Sahara Desert. Their journey culminates in the New Mexico desert, where they witness the first atomic bomb test at Los Alamos. Through war, revolution, and scientific breakthrough, Max and Eleanor struggle to maintain their connection while the world transforms around them. Their relationship becomes a lens through which the great intellectual and political currents of their era play out, testing whether love can survive when history itself becomes the antagonist.
Genres: science-fiction, romance, literary-fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, academic
Vibes: atmospheric, emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Berlin, Cambridge, Los Alamos, New Mexico, Sahara Desert, Spain
Period: 20th Century
550 pages · Paperback · Dalkey Archive Press
Content warnings: war