The Nuclear Age (Paperback)

~ (Author) "because she didn't ask questions, she just dialed. Eyes closed, I listened as she told my mother the whole sorry tale..." (more)
Key Phrases: burning safe house, nothing worth dying, firing device, Ned Rafferty, Ebenezer Keezer, Ollie Winkler (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In 1969, 22-year-old Tim O'Brien was drafted and eventually sent to Vietnam. In a memoir, If I Die in a Combat Zone and two works of fiction--Going After Cacciato and The Things They Carried--he revisited the war, crafting gut-wrenching tales of terror, death, and futility among the rice paddies and jungles of Southeast Asia. In The Nuclear Age the author explores the road not taken: his hero, William Cowling, avoided the draft and spent the 1960s, instead, in a welter of antiwar radicalism. But soon one begins to wonder how different life in the underground, with its strange mix of idealistic visionaries and glory-seeking psychotics, really is from the battlefields of Vietnam. Enlisted in the ranks of an antiwar paramilitary organization in Florida, William remarks to his radical girlfriend Sarah that the group is "like a death squad. Can't tell the good guys from the bad guys, they're all gunslingers. Completely scrambled. But it's lethal. I know that much, it'll kill somebody." Nevertheless, he sticks it out in a noncombatant capacity and resurfaces several years later at the end of the war as a profitable trader in uranium.

Success hasn't dulled William Cowling's survival instinct, however; at the novel's start in 1995, the now-middle-aged businessman is busy digging a bomb shelter in his back yard. Nuclear war has been a particular obsession of his since those childhood drills back in the mid-1950s during which he was expected to crawl under his desk at school and cover his head against fallout. Forty years later, he still isn't taking any chances. His daughter thinks he's crazy, his wife is on the verge of leaving him, but still he digs--and as he digs he reviews the events in his life that have led up to this moment. The Nuclear Age is especially strong when it focuses on William's childhood and the complex web of relationships that exist within families. Less successful is O'Brien's portrayal of his character's obsession with nuclear war; though we are meant to see William as the only truly sane man in an insane world, all too often he comes across as genuinely cracked. Despite the book's weaknesses, it has many strengths, not least among them being Tim O'Brien's fierce intelligence, black wit, and eloquent prose. --Alix Wilber

From Library Journal

Brilliant nuclear detonations and rising silver Titans have plagued William's dreams since his childhood during the Cuban missile crisis, when he fashioned a fallout shelter from the family ping-pong table. Thirty years later his fear has mushroomed into blinding paranoia, and when his wife announces she is leaving, he laces a hole in the backyard with dynamite, places her in it, and prepares to blow her up. Understand, however, that he is a good pacifist. The impending murder is really the Bomb's fault. ``If you're sane, you see the Bomb's madness. If you see madness, you freak.'' Such is O'Brien's ceaseless harangue in The Nuclear Age , an awkward polemic sure to disappoint readers of Going After Cacciato . Sadly, The Nuclear Age is not in that league, with orchestrated excitement here replaced by a didactic monotone. Paul E. Hutchison, English Dept., Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics); 1st THUS edition (December 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140259104
• ISBN-13: 978-0140259100
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #354,043 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A life spent in the shadow of death, August 12, 2001

By	IRA Ross (HOBOKEN, NJ United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

_The Nuclear Age_ recounts one person's search for safety and sanity in a world that is anything but safe and sane. To develop this theme, Tim O'Brien uses William Cowling, the narrator of this book , as his instrument. The novel opens in 1995 with William, debatably insane, digging a huge hole in his backyard for use as a shelter (or is it meant to be a grave?) for his wife, daughter, and himself against an impending nuclear war.

Growing up in the 1950's I recall being extremely fearful of a nuclear war with the then-Soviet Union. I remember gazing in terror at a photograph on the cover of the New York Daily News of a huge mushroom cloud, with the newpaper reporting the Soviet Union testing a 100 megaton hydrogen bomb that was capable of destroying civilization 1000 times over. Like William, I would occasionally lay awake in bed wondering if the next day would be my last and also, like William, being afraid to share my fears of doomsday with my parents.

A child, naturally vulnerable and unfamiliar with the world around him needs to know that he is loved and protected from danger by his parents. When he is constantly bombarded by the media with the imminence of death from nuclear annihilation, even his parents are rendered totally impotent by that possibility. Building a shelter from a ping pong table with a roof lined with "lead pencils" may seem like the only answer to this child.

Years later William, who is a pacifist by nature, chooses to dodge the draft during the madness and carnage that was the Vietnam War. Even then he cannot escape death: all those who are closest to him, including his parents, all die. Even Sarah, his college cheerleader queen, turned anti-war revolutionary, is completely baffled by her imminent demise. Maybe if William had really chose to love her she could could have been protected. In the present, William's shadowy, former flight attendant wife, can only make fun of his fears by pinning puzzling, inscrutable poems that she composed to his clothing.

I agree with those who say that the best parts of this book are those dealing with William's childhood experiences, which includes his relationship with his parents. The sessions with his equally troubled therapist, Charles Adamson, who identifies and verbally empathizes with William's problems, are just priceless. I also liked the variation in the author's writing style, from a standard narrative during William's childhood to the near post-modern, sometimes stream of consciousness style of 1995. I did feel, however, that the 1995 parts concerning William's digging of the nuclear shelter a bit over the top. Also, I do not think that even someone like William, who grew up with the fear of nuclear war and who, though suffering great loss all around him would carry his fears of nuclear war with him into the present day. Nuclear terrorism and massive contamination from nuclear power plant material meltdowns seem more believable fears.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sign of the Times, August 10, 2007

By	R. Chaffey "beckahi" (Chicago) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

With every novel, whether it is his best writing or just under par, Tim O'Brien proves himself to be a master storyteller. His words spring to vivid life in the reader's mind; his characters as enthralling as they are flawed; his stories slightly absurd and complex, but always rewarding, no matter how strange the journey.

"The Nuclear Age" begins with the main character, William Cowling, waking at midnight to dig a bomb shelter in his backyard. In the morning, his wife and daughter are far from pleased, certain that he has gone insane when he can't explain his actions. The story then shifts back in time to recount William's childhood, the nightly terrors of nuclear war that had him building a bomb shelter under the ping pong table in the basement and caused his parents to worry about him. The reader follows William as he ages, ever the outcast on the fringes. With the onset of the war in Vietnam, William finds new purpose, and perhaps a dangerous alliance.

The bulk of the narrative takes place in William's past, with the coalition of renegade friends who plan sabotage as a means of war protest, while William is hiding out, having dodged the draft. The war in Vietnam is never far from O'Brien's writing, so it is interesting to have a story that takes place on the homefront, although the war is ever present. The story takes a turn for the absurd when William fears his bomb shelter will cause him to lose his family, but O'Brien crafts such a cunning story that the loose ends are tied up. "The Nuclear Age" is a demonstration of O'Brien's wit, with laugh-out-loud moments, and the subtle way he can strike a message home is a testament to his intelligence.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars O'Brien is a Gifted Storyteller, January 30, 2005

By	JMack (Chicago) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

I was intrigued in reading the plot of this book as it is posted on the back cover. I have read some of O'Brien's other work and was very impressed. This book is among his best work. The best comparison I could give is that it is a combination of Dr. Strangelove and Catch-22. It is both witty and intelligent commentary on the culture of war.

William's Cowling's greatest fear is nuclear war. Since childhood, he has attempted to allude death in a nuclear fallout. It was during childhood that he built a shelter under the ping-pong table in his parents' basement. The consequences of his childhood behavior are among the more amusing scenes in the book. His fear subsides until the Vietnam protests of the 60's reawaken his phobia. He creates a gang of protestors, who eventually go into hiding to avoid the draft with him. Among these characters is Sarah, who is the most vivid character in the book. She is the woman who thinks she knows what she wants, but really has no clue.

After the series of flashbacks, we return to the present in which William is again struck with fear. The fear causes him dig a massive hole for a fallout shelter. His family thinks he has gone insane. His wife, a somewhat distant amateur poet, never speaks to him. The main dialogue in the present is between William and his daughter. His daughter swears like a sailor, but serves as her father's voice of rationality.

William's further breakdown and eventual recovery pose a number of interesting scenarios. "The Nuclear Age" is wildly entertaining and certainly a book I will recommend to many.