A Hole in Texas: A Novel [Paperback]

Herman Wouk (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 6, 2005

With this rollicking novel-hailed equally for its satiric bite, its lightly borne scientific savvy, and its tender compassion for foible-prone humanity-one of America's preeminent storytellers returns to fiction. Guy Carpenter is a regular guy, a family man, an obscure NASA scientist, when he is jolted out of his quiet life and summoned to the corridors of power in Washington, D.C. Through a turn of events as unlikely as it is inevitable, Guy finds himself compromised by scandal and romance, hounded by Hollywood, and agonizingly alone at the white-hot center of a firestorm ignited as three potent forces of American culture--politics, big science, and the media--spectacularly collide.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Still working more than 50 years after he won the Pulitzer for The Caine Mutiny, and more than 30 years after The Winds of War, Wouk, now nearly 90, has license to write what he pleases: in this case, a light, sprightly story about lost love, high-energy physics and the machinations of Washington. At 60, physicist Guy Carpenter is happily married and the father of two, including a new baby. In the late 1980s and early '90s, he worked on the Superconducting Super Collider, a gigantic federally funded project in Texas aimed at finding the elusive Higgs bosun subatomic particle. Congress pulled the plug on the SSC in 1993 in real life as well as in the novel professionally stranding Carpenter and leaving the Higgs bosun undiscovered. Ten years later, Carpenter has gotten his life back in order, but when a group of Chinese scientists publish a paper claiming to have discovered the Higgs bosun, his quiet existence is upended. Not only was Carpenter a key staff member on the SSC, he has sustained a secret romance since graduate school with Wen Mei Li, the chief scientist on the Chinese team. This confluence of circumstances puts Carpenter on the spot with his wife, the media, Congress and possibly the CIA. It also introduces him to a former movie star congresswoman, who's charmed by his intellect and sympathetic to his plight. The plot is busy but secondary to Carpenter's banter and romantic escapades. Occasionally corny but also playful, thoughtful and passionate, this first novel by Wouk in 10 years will charm fans with its companionable warmth and wry humor.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

""Wouk constructs a tidy atom of a story....A quick read that serves double duty as an entertaining contemporary romp a gently compelling argument for taking the Superconduct Super Collider project out of mothballs."

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Back Bay Books (June 6, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316010855
• ISBN-13: 978-0316010856
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.8 x 8.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,233,433 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Now for something really different..., May 7, 2004

By 

Michael Gunther (Maryland, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Hole in Texas: A Novel (Hardcover)

This novella is unusually interesting, because it brings together two themes which are rarely found even apart, let alone together, in American fiction: Particle Physics (the Superconducting Supercollider and the search for the Higgs Boson), and Senior Romance (age 60+). I can recommend it for most readers, even for those of us who are not 70-year-old particle physicists (I am neither, although I do know one or two people who are both). It is an entertaining glimpse into how this esoteric .00001 percent of the world lives - just like the rest of us, which is the whole point.

The book is very light-hearted. Its romance elements are "G" rated, the particle physics is passed-over trippingly, and its two themes are tied together by a non-serious plot involving some nefarious Capitol Hill doings and a 60-year-old Congresswoman with really great legs.

A major character (and romance interest) in the book is a female Chinese particle physicist, and every once in a while, the book inadvertently (I think!) pops up some stereotypes about female Asian/Pacific Islanders - their "youthful" appearance, other things about their appearance, intelligence, attraction to particle physics, etc. It is not a large part of the book, but the author's mild case of "Asiaphilia" seems worth mentioning for the sake of any readers who might be made uncomfortable by this.

Be that as it may, most readers will enjoy this quick and amusing book, which finds the human interest in a rather esoteric occupation!

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A disappointment, August 22, 2004

By 

Robert - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Hole in Texas: A Novel (Hardcover)

If in some alternate world I had not read the cover before delving into the text, I would not have know that Wouk wrote this except for the fact that after all these decades his characters continue to exclaim "Ye gods!" and "Gads!" I am a tremendous fan of Wouk -- I will re-read some of his works throughout the rest of my life -- but I think A Hole is not indicative of his tremendous contributions to American literature, and, indeed, culture.

I think the reason is that Mr. Wouk's strength was never his ear for conversations, and this book is very chatty. In particular, the interaction between naive but brilliant scientist Guy Carpenter, and the wealthy and world-wise Congresswoman struck me as distractingly artificial, especially when it lapsed into forced cuteness. More minor instances include rural Texas cab drivers who speak like they're 1940s New Yorkers ("Hey lady . . ."), and a strange appearance by Dustin Hoffman that I think might have been edited out if it came from a lesser pen.

Of course, this wasn't by any means a bad book. The portrayal of the marital tension between the Carpenters was written with great power -- the kind that usually Mr. Wouk's books have in their entirety. Mr. Wouk's keen eye for detail was ever-present. The plot was reasonably engaging, if a bit too neat at places. And I doubt I would otherwise have learned what a Higgs Boson is if I didn't read this.

So this is not a bad book, but I just didn't care for the writing. Having such high expectations after Marjorie Morningstar, the Caine Mutiny, War and Remembrance, and on and on, I was left somewhat disappointed.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent characters make good literature!, May 3, 2004

By 

River Rat (United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Hole in Texas: A Novel (Hardcover)

A Hole in Texas his first book in a long time, and it is apparent that Mr. Wouk was motivated by/consulting with his scientist son.

As expected from an author of his stature, there is a hefty helping of unusual words and references to literature. But this book also blends in mystery, national security, Hollywood extravagance, politics, and cross-society naiveté.

His theme is that the Chinese have succeeded in finding the theoretical Higgs Particle while the US was "sleeping." The unifying plot element involved placing blame for "killing" the Superconducting Supercollider and the resultant ceding of US dominance in Particle Physics (although there is no guarantee that the Superconducting Supercollider in Texas would have actually "discovered" the Higgs Particle).

What is really done well is the attention to detail that Mr. Wouk gives his characters. For instance, a corporate jet is made available to the lead character and he has to look around the rest room to find the "hidden" toilet. Heck, most literature does not even mention characters visiting the rest room.

Most readers will not have a good set of pre-arranged expectations for a particle physicist, and the book is not terribly long, so the author wisely falls back on middleclass family life as the basic relationship between his main character and the reader. His characters are truly 3-Dimensional -- and several are "retro" (like an aging CongressWoman who converses with her dead husband... and a wife who slouches into a "SuperMom," juggling career and family because she does not believe that her husband can cope with these details). The characters have plenty of realistic flaws but, as in real life, they mostly stumble ahead in spite of themselves.

Mr. Wouk takes it upon himself to educate readers on cutting edge science, mostly using traditional two person dialog (S. Holmes and Dr. Watson style) but mixing in letters and e-mails for added precision. He also finds time to chastise the US Congress for shortsightedness and lack of collective memory. A Hole in Texas is not written to be an action movie and -- I am glad to report -- in the end, most characters emerge happier.

Liberal Americans will read this book if they like to be entertained while improving their vocabulary and getting a better understanding of their world. Conservative Americans will read this book if they like to be entertained while gaining a better idea of the power structure in the Congress as it relates to Science funding. Non-Americans will read this book if they like to be entertained while identifying some peculiar American quirks and seeing how Big American Science relates to science in the rest of the world. Literature buffs should probably re-read The Caine Mutiny.

For the record, the existance of the Higgs Particle is still merely theoretical. Physicists are still pondering whether such a contrived mathematical device might actually exist, and the energy required to "create" it in a laboratory is probably out of our reach for the near future. The approach used by the Chinese in this book (Atmospheric monitoring for Cosmic Ray interactions) is probably our best bet near-term for science to detect any ultra-massive particles like the Higgs and/or microscopic Black Holes, either of which would inform science tremendously as to the role of gravitation among the other 3 known forces of nature.