"Their average age was twenty-five. They came from Berkeley, Cambridge, Paris, London, Chicago and arrived in New Mexico ready for adventure, or at least resigned to it. But hope quickly turned to hardship as they were forced to adapt to a rugged military town where everything was a secret, including what their husbands were doing at the lab. They lived in barely finished houses with P.O. box addresses in a town wreathed with barbed wire, all for...

Coming-of-age story of a teenage boy sitting out World War II with his mother in a small town in New Mexico while his father volunteers his services to the Navy.

Tayo, a young Native American, has been a prisoner of the Japanese during World War II, and the horrors of captivity have almost eroded his will to survive. His return to the Laguna Pueblo reservation only increases his feeling of estrangement and alienation. While other returning soldiers find easy refuge in alcohol and senseless violence, Tayo searches for another kind of comfort and resolution. Tayo's quest leads him back to the Indian past and...

Maggie's enforced move to New Mexico during World War II with her scientist father creates friction between them as he becomes more and more involved in his secret work.