A Fierce Radiance, Lauren Belfer

I wanted to like this book, I really did. The topic is fascinating. I spoke to her about it briefly when we were both on the alumni council at Swarthmore. But it just isn't very good. At one point, she has one of her characters, a former Stanford Economics professor turned spy, say, "It's nothing like you see in the movies." Someone should have told the author that, since every character, every bad cliche about science, war, espionage, capitalism, and on and on...every detail feels copped from old movies. And not just old movies, but bad old movies.

The time: just days after Pearl Harbor. The plot involves a talented, love-abandoned photographer for Life magazine, beautiful Claire Shipley, and her relationship with the swashbuckling, handsome Jamie Stanton, a researcher at the Rockefeller Institute. Stanton and his beautiful, talented (see a theme here?) sister Tia are working 24/7 on the promising and frustrating search for a reliable way to generate penicillin. The US entry into the war spurs production and the race is on, with the US government and the Big Bad capitalists (the drug companies and Claire's venture capitalist father, Edward Rutherford, all of 'em dead ringers for Lionel Barrymore or some other old Hollywood type) fighting for turf, literally (some molds, the cousins of penicillin, are found in soil samples).

It really is a good idea for a novel. And I actually don't want to spend too much time tearing it down. I'll just say that I wish there'd been more history, much more science, more believable characters, less romance, and fewer authorial flourishes, the danger of any historical novel, where the author flashes bits of their voluminous research at us, asking us to nod along in awe. Another danger: weaving too many actual people into the novel: Henry Luce, Claire Booth Luce, John D Rockefeller and on and on.

But I'm done. Enough said. On to the next book, hopefully one that is better written.