Atomic Family

2023 VCU Cabell First Novelist Award Long List
2023 Book of the Year, Southern Literary Review
Named a 2023 Great Group read, Women’ s National Book Association
A South Carolina family endures one life-shattering day in 1961 in a town that lies in the shadow of a nuclear bomb plant.
It’ s November 1, 1961, in a small town in South Carolina, and nuclear war is coming. Ten-year-old Wilson Porter believes this with every fiber of his being. He prowls his neighborhood for Communists and studies fallout pamphlets and the habits of his father, a scientist at the nuclear plant in town.
Meanwhile, his mother Nellie covertly joins an anti-nuclear movement led by angry housewives— and his father, Dean, must decide what to do with the damning secrets he’ s uncovered at the nuclear plant. When tragedy strikes, the Porter family must learn to confront their fears— of the world and of each other.