Introduction

“Focuses on the little-known realities behind the Manhattan Project […] Readers who enjoyed Martha Hall Kelly’s Lilac Girls will appreciate this glimpse into the beliefs and attitudes that shaped America during World War II.”— Library Journal

An Internationally bestselling novel

In the bestselling tradition of Hidden Figures and The Wives of Los Alamos, comes this riveting novel of the everyday people who worked on the Manhattan Project during World War II.

“What you see here, what you hear here, what you do here, let it stay here.”

In November 1944, eighteen-year-old June Walker boards an unmarked bus, destined for a city that doesn’t officially exist. Oak Ridge, Tennessee has sprung up in a matter of months—a town of trailers and segregated houses, 24-hour cafeterias, and constant security checks. There, June joins hundreds of other young girls operating massive machines whose purpose is never explained. They know they are helping to win the war, but must ask no questions and reveal nothing to outsiders.

The girls spend their evenings socializing and flirting with soldiers, scientists, and workmen at dances and movies, bowling alleys and canteens. June longs to know more about their top-secret assignment and begins an affair with Sam Cantor, the young Jewish physicist from New York who oversees the lab where she works and understands the end goal only too well, while her beautiful roommate Cici is on her own mission: to find a wealthy husband and escape her sharecropper roots. Across town, African-American construction worker Joe Brewer knows nothing of the government’s plans, only that his new job pays enough to make it worth leaving his family behind, at least for now. But a breach in security will intertwine his fate with June’s search for answers.

When the bombing of Hiroshima brings the truth about Oak Ridge into devastating focus, June must confront her ideals about loyalty, patriotism, and war itself.

"The Atomic City Girls is a fascinating and compelling novel about a little-known piece of WWII history."—Maggie Leffler, international bestselling author (Globe and Mail) of The Secrets of Flight

 

Editorial Review

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Excerpt

Chapter 1

November 1944

The bus to Oak Ridge was packed with other girls June’s age, along with a few soldiers and laborers in the back. June had sat in the front by a window to watch the farms and trees pass by, but nerves kept forcing her to look around. The recruiter in Knoxville had pointed the bus out to her, yet she was terrified that she’d gotten on the wrong one. None of the buses in and out of Oak Ridge were labeled because officially the city didn’t exist.

June had felt sophisticated and grown-up this morning, with her hair curled and her mouth painted red, even though she was wearing one of her sister’s hand-me-down dresses. She was on her way to her first job, paying seventy-five cents an hour. Now panic rose up in her belly. Everyone else seemed so calm. How did they know they were headed in the right direction? She looked over at the bus driver, a wide man with a roll of fat at the back of his neck in between his hairline and his shirt collar. She could ask him if she was going to the right place. That’s what Mary would do. Mary had no fear of talking to people. June turned to the middle-aged man sitting beside her. His head was tucked into the Knoxville Journal. “Roosevelt Makes History” read the large headline, and below, in smaller print, “Elected to Record Fourth Term.” Of course June already knew that.

The last time she’d come out this way was two years ago to move her grandfather out of his house. In the two years since that afternoon, they’d heard lots of stories about what was happening in Bear Creek Valley. The Army had built a city, folks said. Mary had been working in Oak Ridge for almost a year and assured June there were plenty of good jobs for the taking. Her sister lived in a house with five other young women. There was no room for June at the moment, so she was going to have to live in a dormitory. June didn’t really mind, though. Mary got on her nerves more than ever now that she was going steady with a sergeant.

A tall fence topped with barbed wire ran along the road, and June could see buildings beyond it in the distance. A sign in front of the fence read MILITARY RESERVATION. NO TRESPASSING. The bus slowed and finally stopped, stuck behind traffic. She craned her neck to see out the front. The cars were stopped at a large gate and lookout tower, where a soldier stood, holding a rifle.

They sat in traffic for twenty minutes. Once through the gate, the bus wound past endless neighborhoods of houses and trailers, all newly built. She couldn’t believe that this was the same land on which her grandfather had lived. It was a large town now, an expanse of buildings and homes that went on as far as she could see. Some neighborhoods were obviously not yet finished. An entire subdivision was made up of only chimneys, which would presumably become whole houses one day, and another was filled with tiny aluminum trailers. The cars on the road kicked up clouds of dust, which seemed to have landed on everything in sight. The bus drove into a business area, with various shops and people coming and going, waiting in lines—young girls, soldiers in uniform, and workmen in plainclothes. It was startling these days to see so many young men in one place.

When the bus driver dropped them off in front of a large white building, he announced, “All new employees report to the front desk.” She was in the right place.

June was sent to a place called the bullpen, the training center where new employees had to wait while their security clearances came through. A throng of other girls sat in a white-walled room with a blackboard at the front where a tall man in a gray suit took roll just as in school and handed out a general information bulletin to them. “You are now a resident of Oak Ridge,” it read, “situated within a restricted military area . . . What you do here, what you see here, what you hear here, let it stay here.”

“Welcome to Oak Ridge,” said the man. “You are all going to be working at one of our plants here on an essential wartime project. We are going to train you, but we cannot tell you what you are working on. It is a matter of national security. But I promise you, ladies, that it is of the utmost importance. If our enemies succeed in this endeavor before we do, God have mercy on all of us.”

The man’s tone softened. “You will work six days a week, ten-hour shifts with an hour lunch break. Shifts will rotate around the clock. It will be hard work, but you can rest easy at night knowing that you are helping to bring an end to the war.”

He passed around a drawing of some kind of a machine with knobs, meters, and levers; none of it meant anything to June. “This is a drawing of the machines you will be operating. I am going to explain what your job will be now. The machines may look confusing, but your job is very simple.”

A stern man in Army uniform came in. He walked quickly to the front of the room and began talking. “I’m going to tell you a story about a girl who was working here at Oak Ridge. She knew she wasn’t supposed to tell anyone about what she was doing here. But she decided to write a letter home to her mother describing what the town looks like. She mentioned how many dormitories there were, how many houses she supposed had been built in the last month, how many cafeterias there were.” For a moment, he silently paced across the room.

“Another story. A man working in a plant went to Knoxville on his day off. Ran into an old friend in a tavern, who asked him where he works. Now, this man also knew better than to talk about his job. But he told his old friend that he worked at the Clinton Engineer Works in a plant and went on to describe what it looked like.” He shook his head, as though marveling at the man’s idiocy.

“A schoolteacher here struck up a conversation with an acquaintance, another Oak Ridge woman she met in church. Began telling this woman about some of her students, where they’re from, what their parents do. Little did this woman know that her friend was reporting back to Army Intelligence. Her friend knew that by having this sort of conversation, the schoolteacher was putting our project at risk, as well as the lives of our boys overseas. The man in Knoxville didn’t know that a secret agent overheard him at the tavern talking to his friend. And the girl who wrote the letter to her mother didn’t know that all mail going out of Oak Ridge may be examined.”

He stopped pacing and faced them head on. “You are living on a military reservation. Everything about this place is secret. The most inconsequential detail could provide important information to our enemies if it fell into the wrong hands. It is up to you to keep your mouths shut. And it is also your responsibility to report anyone who breaks security.”

He swung around and pointed to a girl in the front row. “Would you turn in your father?” He turned to a man behind her. “Your mother?” Turning again. “Your brother? Remember friendship, even family ties, are no excuse. If you know of someone breaching security, it is your responsibility to the United States of America to report it.”

June had a terrible impulse to giggle. This always happened to her when she was nervous in quiet, serious places. She’d burst out laughing at a church revival once and came dangerously close to giggling at her own grandmother’s funeral.

The man produced a piece of paper from his pocket and held it in front of them. “This is the Espionage Act. It says . . .”—he cleared his throat and began reading—“‘Whoever, with intent or reason to believe that it is to be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of a foreign nation, communicates, delivers, or transmits, or attempts to, or aids, or induces another to, communicate, deliver or transmit, to any foreign government . . .’”

He went on and on. June couldn’t follow the words; all her energy was going toward suppressing the anxious laughter building up in her chest. She bit her cheeks to keep from smiling and stared down at her hands. She knew she must be visibly trembling and could feel her eyes begin to water with the strain.

The man put the Espionage Act down and looked solemnly around the room. “People will ask what you do here. Don’t worry about being rude. If someone asks what you’re making, tell them lights for lightning bugs or holes for doughnuts.”

She lost control, and a muffled giggle escaped.

The man turned to her, and June prepared for him to yell. But instead he smiled. “That’s right. It sounds silly. But it’s better to sound silly than put our boys’ lives in danger.”

She smiled back, the laughter gone. The man handed out declarations of secrecy, which everyone had to sign. When they finished, he sent them across the street for lunch.

The cafeteria was bustling. June piled mashed potatoes and meatloaf onto a plate and looked for a place to sit. It was like high school, except there were three times as many people in this room as there had been in her entire school. The tables were full of people talking and laughing with friends. She wondered where Mary was, wishing for the comfort of a relative, or anyone to eat lunch with, really. Finally resigning herself to being alone, she sat at the end of a long table and ate in silence.

When she was done, she wandered back to the bullpen and found the room for the next training lecture, “Young Woman’s Guide to Oak Ridge.” A lumpy woman in her fifties sat at the front of the room, wearing black-framed glasses and a shapeless brown dress. Gray curls formed an orb around her head. She opened a large handbag and took out a pile of pamphlets, which she began passing around the room.

The pamphlet was called “Between Us Girls and the Gatepost.” June opened it and saw a drawing of a pretty young girl sitting at a desk. A man stood over her as though trying to get her attention, but she was engrossed in typing.

“My name is Mrs. Ransom,” announced the woman in a honeyed voice. “I’d like to welcome all you young ladies to Oak Ridge. I’m going to tell you about working here, woman-to-woman. For how many of y’all is this your first job?”

June raised her hand, as did most of the girls. “You’re going to have a wonderful time working here, I guarantee. But you will have to work hard. And there is some advice I want to give you about the workplace.” She said it as though she were just a good-natured woman who went around dispensing free advice to younger ladies.

“The first thing we’re going to talk about, which I’m sure is on all your minds, is what to wear.” This wasn’t on June’s mind at all. She’d never had much choice in what she wore; she was usually in dresses she’d sewn herself from whatever fabric was available, or hand-me-downs from Mary.

“The word I want you all to keep in mind is decorum. Don’t wear too much makeup. Don’t wear dresses that are too short. Don’t expose your midriff.” She put her hand across her own midriff to demonstrate, and June had a horrible unbidden image of what it would look like bare.

“Imagine your mother is here to keep an eye on you, and don’t wear anything she wouldn’t find appropriate.” Her voice was losing its sweetness.

“You will be working around a lot of men, remember, and you don’t want to distract them. Don’t flirt on the job. There will be dances where you can have fun; save your flirting for then. You have a responsibility to our boys overseas to work as hard as you can and not do anything to keep the men around you from working hard, too. You don’t want innocent boys to lose their lives because you’re wasting time flirting.”

Mrs. Ransom paused. When she spoke again, the sweetness had returned. “But that doesn’t mean we don’t want you to look attractive! You also have a responsibility to keep yourselves looking neat and pretty. Your appearance should reflect well upon the Manhattan Engineer District as a whole. Suits are always a good choice, as are sweaters and skirts. Tailored dresses are fine, especially if you can sponge-press them yourself in the dormitory.”

June owned only five dresses, and they were basically all the same shape. She’d never even seen girls in short dresses or with exposed midriffs. And the thought of flirting mortified her.

***

It was two more days before June got her security clearance and was finally allowed to move into the dormitory. She was praying for a nice roommate.

The first thing she noticed about Cici Roberts was that she was tall. She stood straight with perfect posture, her navy jacket emphasizing her wide shoulders, which somehow did not look manly, but rather elegant. She carried herself as though she ought to be wearing a crown instead of the small hat that was perched on the dark brown waves of her shining hair, which perfectly framed her stunning face. Her lips were large and round, painted a deep red. She was unarguably beautiful, majestic, out of place in the drab, militaristic dorm room. Cici looked as though she had never darned a sock or weeded a vegetable garden or scrubbed a floor. She belonged in large rooms with high ceilings, sipping from porcelain teacups, ordering servants around.

And then she spoke. Her voice was coated with sugar, bourbon, and a sprig of cool mint, a perfect southern accent that to June was more recognizable from the movies than from anyone she knew in East Tennessee. Cici drawled out her words so that it didn’t much matter what she was saying; you listened to every note for its music. “Hello there! You must be June. I’m Cici Roberts of Nashville, Tennessee. It is such a pleasure to meet you. Why, you are just adorable! I’m so happy we’re living together and know we will be the best of friends.”

June shook Cici’s long, cool hand. “Pleased to meet you,” she replied, suddenly ashamed of her own hillbilly twang.

“Here, this is your cot,” motioned Cici, and June put her bag down beside it. “Isn’t this room just awful? I’ve tried to pretty it up a bit.” There were postcards decorating the wall over Cici’s bed. “But I’m afraid there’s only so much we can do.”

Cici sat on her bed and June did likewise on her own cot. “Where are you from?” Cici asked.

“Near Maryville.”

“Never heard of it. Is it nearby?”

“Not too far off. My mama grew up here in Oak Ridge.”

“That so? Hard to imagine what this place used to look like.”

“It looked about the same as every place else round here.” June looked around the room to a third bed. Cici followed her eyes.

“One other girl is living here.” Cici gave a quick look at the door and whispered, “I hate to say anything unkind, but between you and me, she’s just trash.”

June wondered what qualified this girl as trash but was afraid to ask. Cici went on: “The dorm is all right, though. They don’t allow men inside—what a nuisance! You should see them all huddled out front on Saturday night, waiting for their gals. The canteen across the street is a decent place, good coffee. We have it all right here. I’m sure you got the security talk in the bullpen. Let me tell you, they mean it. A girl living down the hall got fired last week. Folks said she wrote too much about town in a letter she wrote to her boyfriend overseas.”

“It doesn’t seem right they can read our letters.”

Cici shrugged. “It’s security, is all.”

“How long have you been in Oak Ridge?”

“Just two months, and they have flown by. Work keeps you busy, and the rest of the time we’re busy having fun. There are dances here almost every night—it’s like heaven. And the men! There are more men here than any other place in the country right now, except Army bases. But these men aren’t headed overseas next week; they’re staying right here! I mean, you have to be careful, of course. Some of them only have one thing on their minds, if you know what I mean.” She arched her perfectly formed brow. June nodded.

“Why, we should go out tonight to celebrate your arrival!” Cici beamed. “I bet you could pick up a soldier at the dance.”

June winced at this last comment. “Oh, I hardly know how to dance.”

“I’ll teach you! A pretty thing like you would have no problem getting a boy to teach you, either.”

“Maybe I could just watch you dance.”

“Nonsense! Being here is a golden opportunity; you mustn’t waste it. We will find you a soldier tonight.”

“I had a soldier,” she snapped, her voice louder than she meant for it to be.

Cici’s face deflated. “Oh.”

“My fiancé was killed three months ago.”

“Oh, you poor thing. I’m so sorry, and me going on this way.”

June hadn’t meant to blurt out about Ronnie that way. “It’s all right. I know you didn’t mean anything by it.”

“Of course. I shouldn’t have pestered you like that. But still, you should come to the dance. It’s a whole heap of fun, even if you’re not looking for a man.”

“I’d love to.” June felt tremendously glad to have a friend and something to do tonight. But the dance made her nervous, and she was glad to have an excuse not to flirt or try to catch a soldier’s eyes. With that feeling of gladness came the dull pain of guilt, which had become all too familiar.

Ronnie Lawson had lived next door to June her whole life, and they’d been best friends. They saw each other almost every day, running around the woods after school, going to the creek to swim in the summer. A couple of years ago, though, something had changed. Ronnie began to act awkward around her, going off to play with other boys that summer and teasing her in front of everyone when they were back at school. One day his taunts about how skinny she was were too cruel. She cried all the way home from school, and Mary found her sulking in the barn. When she told her sister what had happened, Mary acted as though it were the most natural thing in the world, her best friend’s betrayal. “He probably just likes you,” she said.

“Likes me? He sure doesn’t act like it. We always liked each other; we were best friends!”

Mary laughed at her, and June felt her already injured pride take another small blow. “Silly, he doesn’t just like you as a friend anymore. I’ll bet he’s sweet on you. He just doesn’t know how to tell you, so he’s being mean. I remember boys doing just the same thing to girls when I was in school.” She made it sound like that was so long ago, when she’d only just graduated from high school that spring.

June thought her sister was crazy at first, but slowly she did begin to notice things. Ronnie sometimes stared at her in class. One day, she was almost certain, he followed her home from school, walking a distance behind her as though trying to hide. By the next fall, he’d asked her to go steady, and how could she say no?

At first June had been terrified of Ronnie’s visits. But by spring, she was used to them. She felt comfortable in Ronnie’s arms, happy when he arrived on the porch, but never desperate to see him again, never fiery with desire. He only ever pecked at her mouth or cheek, thankfully not trying to go any further. He seemed to think she was too shy and proper to open her mouth or kiss him back. Maybe she was, yet she couldn’t dispel the feeling that if it had been another boy kissing her, she would want to throw her head back, open her mouth to him, and kiss him the way the stars did in the movies.

It was two days before their high school graduation when Ronnie came by to ask if she wanted to go on a walk. June looked to her mother for permission, who nodded, smiling.

“I’ll come back to help you with supper,” offered June.

“Take your time.”

Ronnie was silent as they set out across the field toward the stand of woods behind his house. He wasn’t a talkative sort, but June didn’t mind silence. As they neared the forest, she spoke up. “Mama wanted me to invite you and your family over for dinner after graduation. Do you think they’d like to come?”

Ronnie stopped walking. He shook his head. “I can’t. I’m catching a ride with Ollie to the bus that afternoon. We’re headed to basic training in Alabama.”

The words physically impacted her before she could even think through their meaning. She felt as though her head momentarily filled with hot air. “But . . . it’s so soon.”

“I told you I was going to enlist as soon as we graduated.”

She stared at his chubby pink face, still so childlike, not the face of a man who could fight in a war.

“I want to ask you something important,” he said, thrusting his hands into his pockets, his face growing serious.

June was scared of what the question might be, and looked down.

“June, I want you to marry me when I get back.”

He was facing her now, holding both her hands. She felt cold, even though the air was heavy and hot, and had the desire to run as far as she could.

There was no deciding. She knew the only answer she could give was yes, so she opened her mouth and let the word squeak out. He looked so happy that she couldn’t help but smile. His arms enveloped her with a new urgency and passion, his mouth fell on hers, and this time she turned her neck up and kissed him like Vivien Leigh.

“I love you,” he whispered in her ear, his breath hot against her cheek.

“I love you, too,” she heard herself saying.

But even as the words hung fresh in the humid air, June was certain that she did not love him, not the way a woman is supposed to love her husband. She loved Ronnie as her best childhood friend, but she felt no passion for him as a lover, no desire to spend the rest of her life at his side.

As he walked her back to the house, she realized that the mystery of her blank future had, just like that, been filled in. She would go on living here, on a farm, with Ronnie. Her life would resemble her mother’s. It seemed simple and, instantly, unavoidable. And the thought of it made her want to cry.

Ronnie’s mother had her over for dinner the night before he was to leave. Suddenly graduation day, which she had looked forward to all year, had become an afterthought, just something else that was happening the day Ronnie left for basic training.

Ronnie lived with his mother and little sister Evie. His father had died of a heart attack a year ago, and his older brother was already overseas. The four of them sat around the table eating a feast of ham, mashed potatoes, green beans, and rolls. Maggie Lawson stared at her son as he ate, and June tried not to notice the terror in her eyes.

“Reckon it’ll be even hotter than this in Alabama,” Ronnie spoke in between chewing great mouthfuls. Neither his appetite nor his spirits seemed to be affected by his impending departure.

“Don’t suppose the Army will give you food this good,” said June, smiling appreciatively at Mrs. Lawson.

“They’ll give you Hershey bars!” said little Evie.

“I’d rather have Mama’s shoofly pie.”

Everyone was grinning at Mrs. Lawson, but the poor woman could hardly bring herself to smile back.

“Make sure they take care of you,” she said finally.

Ronnie was all confidence. “The Army takes care of its men.”

After dinner, he wanted to take June on a walk down to Gregory’s Pond. That night his kisses were filled with passion, and his hands touched parts of her they’d never dared go near before. She let them. A feeling of duty had fallen over June ever since Ronnie had asked her to marry him. She didn’t seem to be choosing or participating in anything; she just responded however she thought he wanted her to.

Again, his hot, urgent whisper was at her ear, “If you’re going to be my wife, it wouldn’t be a sin for us to . . .”

He couldn’t say the words, but she knew what he meant. And even to this one last outrageous request, she couldn’t say no. The boy was going to war, she figured, she had to make him happy on his last night home. And besides, it was over quickly.

Four months later, he was dead.

It had been an afternoon late in August when Evie came running over and found June on the porch of the house, shelling peas. As soon as she saw Evie sobbing on the drive, June knew what had happened. It was so fast. Just the day before, she’d gotten her first, and now only, letter from Ronnie after he’d shipped out.

June went with Evie to the Lawsons’ house. Mrs. Lawson was crumpled on the kitchen floor in her worn blue apron, curled in a fetal position, moaning. She was a stocky woman, but appeared small and compact, as though tragedy had shrunk her. June didn’t know what to do, what to say, but Evie was watching, expecting June to somehow help her mother. June got down on her knees beside the woman and touched her shoulder. “It’s June, Mrs. Lawson. Evie told me.” As she said this, her voice cracked, and she felt hot tears spill over her eyes.

Mrs. Lawson became quiet. She sat up and looked at June, taking her hand. “Oh, poor June. You loved him so much. You loved my boy.” She embraced June, who was sobbing now herself, partly at the loss of Ronnie, partly at the tremendous guilt of knowing she hadn’t ever loved him like she should.

And so the past three months had been full of this gnawing sadness and unrelenting self-hatred. She went through her chores on the farm, more obsessed with Ronnie than she ever had been when they were courting, the perfect image of a miserable young war widow. She cried into her pillow at night, stayed quiet at the dinner table, and spent inordinate amounts of time to herself, walking the paths they used to go down together.

Finally her father suggested that it might do her good to get away from the farm. Why didn’t she go work at Oak Ridge with her sister? The idea suited her well enough; she liked the thought of working, and hoped it would distract her from herself.

Because beneath her grief, deeper down than even the guilt, was another feeling, one she wouldn’t dare name or even allow herself to think before trying to shake it loose.

Relief. view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

1. Both June and Sam violate the Army’s rules by sharing top-secret information about the Manhattan Project. Do you think their actions are justified? Is Cici justified in reporting June to the Army?

2. Joe warns Ralph against his political activism because he thinks it’s useless and dangerous. Ralph does help affect change but becomes a victim of violence. Are the risks he takes too great? Do you think Joe still feels the same way in the end?

3. In the epilogue, June struggles to explain to her children that “different times call for different actions.” Do you think that’s true? Were June and Sam doing the right thing by working on the Manhattan Project during the war?

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