A Thin Bright Line

by Lucy Jane Bledsoe

Overview

At the height of the Cold War, Lucybelle Bledsoe is offered a job seemingly too good to pass up. However, there are risks. Her scientific knowledge and editorial skills are unparalleled, but her personal life might not withstand government scrutiny.
            Leaving behind the wreckage of a relationship, Lucybelle finds solace in working for the visionary scientist who is extracting the first-ever polar ice cores. The lucidity of ice is calming and beautiful. But the joyful pangs of a new love clash with the impossible compromises of queer life. If exposed, she could lose everything she holds dear.
            Based on the hidden life of the author’s aunt and namesake, A Thin Bright Line is a love story set amid Cold War intrigue, the origins of climate research, and the nascent civil rights movement. Poignant, brilliant, and moving, it reminds us to act on what we love, not just wish for it.

"It triumphs as an intimate and humane evocation of day-to-day life under inhumane circumstances."—New York Times Book Review

“Bledsoe covers a lot of ground here, imagining her intellectual aunt’s relationship to the queer cultural transformations of the 1950s, as well as the paranoia of the Cold War era.”—San Francisco Chronicle

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780299309381
Publisher:	University of Wisconsin Press
Publication date:	10/18/2016
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	701,479
File size:	402 KB

About the Author

Lucy Jane Bledsoe is an award-winning science writer and novelist for adults and children. Her many books include The Ice Cave: A Woman’s Adventures from the Mojave to the Antarctic, The Big Bang Symphony: A Novel of Antarctica, This Wild Silence, and Working Parts. A native of Portland, Oregon, she lives in Berkeley, California.

Editorial Reviews

Structured chronologically and peppered with dates, the novel possesses the granularity of a diary. Bledsoe stresses the importance of the science she describes…but the book's heart beats elsewhere. It triumphs as an intimate and humane evocation of day-to-day life under inhumane circumstances.

The New York Times Book Review - Alastair Gee

08/29/2016
In an empowering and bold, though at times cursory, piece of fiction, Bledsoe (The Ice Cave) fashions a life for her aunt and namesake, Lucybelle Bledsoe, during one of the most significant periods in American history. Lucybelle, an independent and intelligent Arkansas native, leaves New York City for Chicago in the 1950s after being offered a job as the head of the editorial department for a lab, run by the Army Corps of Engineers, that studies Arctic ice cores to reveal “a story of earth’s climate... perfectly preserved, for thousands of years.” There, she faces an onslaught of problems as a result of her sexual identity and her presence as a woman at a workplace composed of male scientists. Racial tension arises with the introduction of Stella, a black, well-read, and charismatic photographer, with whom Lucybelle gets involved despite the disapproval of both society and peers. Considering today’s political and social climate, Bledsoe’s novel is more than relevant. She gives her readers refreshers on the violence that both the queer community and the black community faced and continue to face. Despite the sometimes flat tone, Bledsoe injects life and dimension through her often stunning dialogue. With heart and zest, the author depicts Lucybelle’s slice of life as both pleasant and harrowing. Agent: Reiko Davis, DeFiore and Company. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

This is gripping historical fiction about queer life at the height of the Cold War and the civil rights movement, and its grounding in fact really makes it sing. Like the scientists whose papers she edits, Lucybelle Bledsoe is passionate about the truth. Whether it’s the climate history of the planet as illuminated by cores of polar ice or the pursuit of an authentic emotional life in the miasma of McCarthyism, she operates with piercing honesty.”—Alison Bechdel, author of Fun Home


“A testament to courage and perseverance in the face of oppression, and a compelling, literary page-turner worthy of standing alongside the works of Pat Barker and Graham Greene. A Thin Bright Line reminds us that we are nothing, deep down, without love and dignity.”—Patrick Ryan, author of The Dream Life of Astronauts


“In this ingenious hybrid of fact and fiction, a fine novelist uses her storytelling skills to recover the lost life of a favorite aunt, a bookish, unmarried scientist from Arkansas. With her story Bledsoe also exhumes a dark, clandestine age in American history, the time of Ann Bannon and Patricia Highsmith, but made more intimate and real.”—Christopher Bram, author of Gods and Monster


“Through her fictional reconstruction of the life of her namesake, her beloved aunt—who fought the good fight as a pioneering professional and a lesbian in unsympathetic times—Lucy Jane Bledsoe re-creates an important piece of history and imagines what it was like to live it. Poignant in both its conception and execution.”—Lillian Faderman, author of The Gay Revolution


“An engaging and moving novel about an unforgettable character. Intelligent, unadorned, and unsentimental, it allows us to look at a difficult time in American history with clarity instead of nostalgia.”—Rabih Alameddine, author of An Unnecessary Woman


“Bledsoe injects life and dimension through her often stunning dialogue. With heart and zest, the author depicts Lucybelle's slice of life as both pleasant and harrowing.”—Publishers Weekly


“Is it possible for a novel to both break your heart and to heal it? . . . Bledsoe is deft in the way she shows . . . various models of how to be a lesbian in the world of the ‘50s and early ‘60s.”—Lambda Literary Review


“A story set in mid-20th century America - one that deftly weaves closeted sexuality, Cold War politics and a mysterious death that haunts the author to this day.”—San Jose Mercury News

From the Publisher

2016-08-03
As the Cold War gave way to movements for civil, women’s, and gay rights, many Americans believed that major social change was inevitable.Indeed, Lucybelle Bledsoe thought that as opportunities emerged, people of color, lesbians, and gay men would finally be able to live authentically. What a relief that would be, even for a nonactivist lesbian like her who demanded recognition for her work, not her identity. As an editor with the Army Corps of Engineers; the Snow, Ice, and Permafrost Research Establishment; and the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory, she made the scientific papers of numerous scientists accessible to a general readership. Her colleagues touted her diligence and persistence and were devastated when, at the age of 43, she died in a house fire. Her niece Lucy Jane Bledsoe (The Found Child, 2015, etc.), then 9, had many questions about her beloved aunt; sadly, all she was able to glean was that Lucybelle was intelligent—and unmarried. As Lucy Jane came of age, she began to wonder about Lucybelle’s personal life and uncovered references to a “companion” named Vera. Later, a few other details materialized. Still, Lucy Jane wanted more; eventually she realized that she’d have to use her imagination to re-create Lucybelle’s environment. The resultant novel merges fact and fiction to create a historically accurate picture of the struggles faced by LGBT people in the 1950s and '60s; the closeting that was required for professional advancement; and the ways the Cold War pitted pure science against research to benefit the defense industry.A stirring and deeply felt story.

Kirkus Review