Inspired by the true story of a dangerous atomic weapon and the man
who designed it, here is a stunning novel of morality, creation, and
loss from the acclaimed author of The Honey Farm and Natural
Killer.
It is August 12, 1945. Tomorrow, August Snow will be tried at the
International War Crimes Court for patenting a more lethal variation on
the atomic bomb. He invented a radiation machine to cure his young
daughter's cancer, despite knowing that the very same technology was
capable of great destruction, and inevitably profited from disaster. But
are his intentions relevant when the fate of the world is at stake?
August's former wife, June, will also attend the hearing. Restless in
her Hague hotel room the night before, she keeps watch over their
daughter and reflects on the events that brought them here. She had
nothing to do with making the bomb. But is she innocent? Wouldn't any
wife and mother have done the same thing in her shoes? And now, will it
cost her everything?
Inspired by the physicist Leó Szilárd and the letters he wrote his wife,
Gertrud "Trude" Weiss, Let It Destroy You is told in parallel
narratives and ventures from Budapest to Berlin to Colorado, and back to
Europe. It is a love story about two people whose destinies are bound by
everything they share, and all that they've kept from one another. Above
all, it is a testament to the logic-defying love of a parent who will
stop at nothing to protect their child.