The Atomic Weight of Love

March 14, 2016
Meridian Wallace grew up wanting to study birds. As a student at the University of Chicago in the 1940s, she falls in love with and marries an older physics professor, Alden Whetstone, who leaves her side temporarily to work on the Manhattan Project. At the end of the war, he stays on at Los Alamos, but Meri joins him, putting her graduate work in ornithology on hold. On her own, she begins to study and sketch the local crow population. As the decades pass, Meri resigns herself to a marriage devoid of passion. Then, in 1970, she meets Clay Griffin, a geology student and Vietnam veteran who, at 26, is young enough to be her son. Meri resolves to keep her distance from the disarmingly straightforward young man, but is drawn back to him time and again. As Meri considers leaving her husband for him, a sudden illness forces her to re-evaluate her plans for the future. As characters go, Meri is a little too passive, Alden too one-dimensional a domestic tyrant, and Clay too good to be true. Nonetheless, readers will enjoy following Meri’s long, vivid journey, which concludes in her 80s. Agent: Michelle Brower, Folio Literary Management.

June 1, 2016

What does love require of us? How does one strike a balance between compromise and self-fulfillment? In her debut novel, Church writes to these issues in a style that is thoughtful and elegant. Meridian Wallace, an aspiring ornithologist at the University of Chicago, falls for an atomic scientist who is 20 years older. World War II takes them to Los Alamos in distant New Mexico, where their marriage slowly erodes. Meri finds some salvation in studying the birds around her, which leads her to meet a recent veteran of the Vietnam War 20 years her junior. Their attraction is strong, but the seismic changes happening within American society make it difficult for them to create a life together. As time passes, we watch as Meri ages, continuing to examine and come to terms with her choices. With facts involving birds woven throughout, issues of love, identity, and sacrifice are underlined by the adage, "The heart wants what the heart wants." VERDICT Church hits the mark in this emotionally driven debut that spans the chapters of a long life. [See Prepub Alert, 11/9/15.]--Susanne Wells, Indianapolis P.L.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 15, 2016
Church's debut novel explores the relationship between sacrifice and love. Set during World War II and the decades leading up to the Vietnam War, the novel follows Meridian Wallace as she transforms from a bright ornithologist-to-be studying at the University of Chicago into an unhappy housewife. While in college she meets Alden Whetstone, a brilliant physics professor who joins the team of scientists at Los Alamos, New Mexico, to work on a top-secret wartime project. The bookish Meridian falls in love fast with Alden's intense intellect, and the two are married in 1944, at the end of Meridian's junior year. Once she graduates and moves to New Mexico, however, Meridian becomes disenchanted with married life; it isn't the passionate endeavor she had in mind, and soon she's off the path to getting her Ph.D. Years later, she falls in love again, this time with a young Vietnam veteran, and is forced to evaluate the choices she's made up to that point. The story, though spanning several decades, never loses momentum. The writing is descriptive and clean. Church's commentary on the American nuclear family, particularly the expectations placed on women, showcases iterations ranging from doting housewives and mothers who are content in their roles to the rebellious. Each sentence drives the plot further, exploring love's limits and its spoils. But it's Church's exploration of Meridian's role in her relationships that is the most gracefully executed feat of the novel. Even while describing Meridian's disappointment in her marriage, Church's writing is never overly sentimental. Meridian's voice is poignant, a mixture of poetry and observation: "I cannot escape the beating of my 87-year-old heart, the constancy of it, the weariness of it," Meridian says in the prologue. "I cannot say with scientific certainty how many times over these many decades...it catapulted with love or capitulated in grief." An elegant glimpse into the evolution of love and womanhood.

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March 1, 2016
While every marriage should be built on a foundation of love and compromise, the structure begins to collapse when it turns out that the supposedly equal partnership has not been set on level ground. Such is the case when college student Meridian Wallace falls in love with her physics professor, Alden Whetstone, a man more than 20 years her senior. Convinced that his intellect will be enough to sustain a long-term relationship, she sacrifices her own goals of pursuing advanced studies in ornithology at the altar of Alden's booming career. When Alden moves to Los Alamos to join the secret group that ultimately produces the first atom bomb, Meri's career is all but obliterated. It takes another man 20 years her junior to inspire her to truly question her choices and try to break free of the choke hold of marriage, but she is trapped again by circumstance. Church's debut will likely strike a chord, especially with women who find that not much has changed in our patriarchal society since Meri's time, and that Meri's story might well be their own.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)

Aspiring ornithologist Meridian Wallace is thrilled to attract the attentions of a knowledgeable older professor, but their marriage turns sour when she realizes he has no interest in encouraging her professional dreams. Church vividly captures America's shifting conceptions of gender roles over the 20th century. (LJ 6/1/16)