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While I was up at the cottage, I had the opportunity to read Lydia Millet’s latest novel, Oh Pure and Radiant Heart. This is the author’s fifth work, and it contains much of the style fans have come to appreciate from Millet. It features razor sharp wit, scalding satire, beautifully rendered prose, and on top of that, it’s a really great, unstoppable read.
     The premise is fantastically surreal. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the A bomb, finds himself mysteriously time-traveled from the first atomic test site straight into the 21^st century: A world of MTV, bad manners, nasty fashion, and worst of all – a place where you can’t smoke. He meets up with Ann, a young librarian who’s been traumatized by a gun-wielding hippie, and together, they–aided by Ann’s husband, Ben, and a couple of other time traveling nuclear scientists–decide to try and save the world.
     Oh Pure and Radiant Heart is a funny, thought-provoking read that’ll have you thinking about the larger horrors of war, while pondering the inner human frictions that attract the unlikeliest of new friends and keeps marriage going no matter what or who comes knocking at the door.
     I spoke with Lydia Millet on the phone from her home in Tucson where she’d just returned from vacation with her daughter.

Buy Oh Pure and Radiant Heart at: Amazon.ca | Chapters.ca

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