Evidence of Things Unseen

Set in the Atomic Age, Marianne Wiggins’s novel Evidence of Things Unseen is about a couple, Fos and Opal, who fall in love as the world changes rapidly around them. Fos, a scientist and devotee of technology and everything it holds for the future, is forced to face the impact of new energy systems when his wife falls sick from radiation poisoning after being exposed at the Oak Ridge Laboratory, where Fos has found work. Part romance and part historical look at the way the world changed in the middle of the twentieth century, Evidence of Things Unseen examines the way technology changes the course of individual lives.

As the novel opens, Fos has just returned to his home in Tennessee after serving in the trenches during World War I. Fos's eyes were damaged during the war when he was exposed to mustard gas, and he has a new fascination with light and color. He is obsessed with electricity, bioluminescence, meteor showers, x-rays, and particularly photography.

Fos goes to see the Perseid meteor shower on the Outer Banks of North Carolina and meets Opal, a strong woman raised by a glassblower, with a strong foundation in practical skills like auto mechanics. Fos is fascinated by Opal's father's work turning glass into glittering light and color. Opal and Fos decide to get married, and Opal returns to Knoxville, Tennessee to live with Fos.



Back in Knoxville, Fos and his old Army pal Flash decide to open a photography shop. Things are going well for the couple, particularly for Fos, who has found a way to make money working with something he loves. However, everything takes a quick turn for the worse when Flash’s appetite for alcohol and pleasure cause problems for the couple. Flash, harassed by the Ku Klux Klan, is convicted under the Mann Act for a relationship he has with a local woman, and the shop has to close. Fos finds himself unemployed without many prospects.

Fos and Opal make the hard decision to move to Opal's mother's farm, unsure where else to turn now that they have no income. Their life on the farm is difficult, and the labor is intense. While living on the farm, they try and fail for months to conceive a child before recognizing that they won't be able to be parents. Both of them are devastated until an orphaned baby abandoned by parents struggling in the Depression shows up on their doorstep. Fos and Opal name the baby Lightfoot, quickly embracing their new lives as parents.

Again, the world gets in the way of their happiness. As a result of the New Deal, their farm is taken for the Tennessee Valley Authority's rural electrification project. Fos finds a new job at the Oak Ridge Laboratory, the main site for the creation of the Atomic Bomb. Though Fos is still hopeful about the possibility of bringing electricity to Tennessee, he is forced to reckon with the dangers of other scientific passions when Opal becomes deathly ill from radiation poisoning after being exposed to too many x-rays. Fos is further devastated when nuclear fission, which he had been working toward at Oak Ridge, results in the death of hundreds of thousands of people in Hiroshima.



Through it all, Opal and Fos remain devoted to their family and to each other, as they witness the joys and pains of the Depression, Prohibition, atomic technology, the TVA, and much more. As the world moves into another deadly war, Fos is forced to acknowledge that technology, though incredible, also has the power to ruin the lives of thousands, even millions of innocent people.

Marianne Wiggins is the author of seven novels, most notably her book John Dollar. She has received a number of awards and grants for her work, including an NEA grant, a Whiting Award, and more. Evidence of Things Unseen was nominated for both a National Book Award and a Pulitzer Prize in fiction. Her most recent novel is The Shadow Catcher.