Daikon — Samuel Hawley

A sweeping and suspenseful novel of love and war, set in Japan during the harrowing final days of World War II, that is premised on an intriguing historical possibility: the United States actually delivered three atomic bombs to the Pacific, not two, and the first falls into the hands of the Japanese Imperial Army, who recruit a local civilian-scientist to figure out what it is, how it works—and how it might be used against the Americans.War has taken everything from physicist Keizo Kan. His young daughter was killed in the Great Tokyo Air Raid, and now his Japanese American wife, Noriko, has been imprisoned by the brutal Thought Police. An American bomber, downed over Japan on the first day of August 1945, offers the scientist a shocking chance at salvation. The Imperial Army dispatches him to examine an unusual device recovered from the plane’s wreckage—a bomb containing uranium—and tells him that if he can unlock its mysteries, his wife will be released. Working in secrecy under crushing pressure, Kan begins to disassemble the bomb and study its components. One of his assistants falls ill after mishandling the uranium, but his alarming deterioration, and Kan’s own symptoms, are ignored by the commanding officer demanding results. Desperate to stave off Japan’s surrender to the Allies, the army will stop at nothing to harness the weapon’s unimaginable power. They order Kan to prepare the bomb for manual detonation over a target—a suicide mission that will strike a devastating blow against the Americans. Soon, Kan is faced with a series of agonizing decisions that will test his courage, his loyalty, and his humanity. This is a gripping and powerfully moving saga of love, survival, and impossible choices. It is set amid the chaos and despair of the world’s third largest city lying in ruins, its population starving and its leadership under escalating assault from without and within. A remarkable debut novel that is the result of twenty-eight years of work by its author, Daikon is a haunting epic that calls to mind such classics as Cold Mountain and From Here to Eternity—and introduces a singular new voice on the literary landscape.