AMERICAN PROMETHEUS The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer

J. Robert Oppenheimer used his brilliant mind to organize and build the first atomic bomb. At war’s end he faced a harder battle—suffering the ’50s pogroms of Senator Joseph McCarthy and J. Edgar Hoover for his and his wife’s ties with the Communist Party. Oppy’s life brought him into the spheres of the great intellectuals and politicos of the time. Although Jeff Cummings moves briskly, his phonetics never soften. Cummings faces a prodigious text with more facts, quotes, and testimony than fuzzy stories. He could have used theater voices for the rapid-fire Senate interrogations, but the tempo and detachment he assumes fit the task. He uses an unstudied gringo accent for the occasional Spanish names and words. J.A.H. © AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine [Published: AUG/ SEP 07]