The release date for the English version of 'The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II' by
Denise Kiernan is Mar 2013. If you enjoy this novel, it is available for buy as a paperback from Barnes & Noble or Indigo, as an ebook on the Amazon Kindle store, or as an audiobook on Audible.
The amazing tale of the young ladies from Oak Ridge, Tennessee, who unknowingly contributed significantly to one of the most important events in American history.
In 1942, the Tennessee community of Oak Ridge was founded from the ground up. One of the Manhattan Project’s secret cities, it didn’t appear on any maps until 1949, and yet at the height of World War II it was using more electricity than New York City and was home to more than 75,000 people, many of them young women recruited from small towns across the South. Their work was mysterious, but they were supported by a strong feeling of camaraderie, intimate friendships, and an abundance of attractive scientists and Army men!
But underneath this colourful background of conflict, a darker narrative was developing. They risked losing their jobs and being evicted if they discussed their employment, even in the most mundane ways. One woman was recruited to spy on her coworkers. They were all aware that something significant was taking on in Oak Ridge, but only a handful were able to put together the whole scope of their work before the bomb "Little Boy" was dropped over Japan and the truth came to light. The startling discovery: Oak Ridge residents were enriching uranium in preparation for the atomic weapon.
Though the young women originally believed they would leave Oak Ridge after the war, many met husbands there, made lifelong friends, and still call the seventy-year-old town home. Even now, they are still feeling the effects of the job they performed there, which they did not quite comprehend at the time. Through interviews with several surviving women and other Oak Ridge locals, Denise Kiernan tells the incredible tale of these unsung WWII labourers in her book The Girls of Atomic City. This is history and science brought to life, much as in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. It is a masterfully written, well researched tale that develops in an intriguing and thrilling manner.