What happens when a lifelong clinical psychologist turns family history into a powerful historical novel?
In this episode of Plot Twist Radio, I sit down with author and former clinical psychologist Leslie Schover to discuss her debut novel Fission: A Novel of Atomic Heartbreak, inspired by her parents’ experiences living in Oak Ridge during the Manhattan Project.
Leslie shares the real stories passed down through her family, including the secrecy surrounding Oak Ridge, the emotional realities of life during World War II, and the shocking discovery that Soviet spies worked alongside her father during the development of the atomic bomb.
We also dive into:
• The emotional power of historical fiction
• Writing relationships, marriage, and intimacy
• The transition from nonfiction to fiction writing
• The ethics and legacy of nuclear weapons
• Oak Ridge and the Manhattan Project
• Cold War fears and generational memory
• Writing realistic dialogue and character-driven fiction
• Why fiction can help us better understand history
Leslie also opens up about becoming a first-time novelist at 73, building community with other writers, and finding creative freedom later in life.
If you love historical fiction, World War II history, the Manhattan Project, writing craft discussions, or conversations about the emotional side of history, this episode is for you.
Where to find Leslie:
#HistoricalFiction #ManhattanProject #OakRidge #WorldWarII #AuthorInterview #WritingCommunity #PlotTwistRadio #LeslieSchover #ColdWarHistory #BookPodcast
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Welcome to Plot Twist Radio, the show where creativity,
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storytelling and the unpredictable path of the
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creative life all collide. I'm your host, Aaron Egnatz.
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Leslie. Hi, welcome to the show.
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Hi, thanks so much for having me as a guest.
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It's great to have you. Can you introduce yourself to
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the audience? Sure.
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I'm Leslie Shover, and I had a long career as a clinical
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psychologist with a kind of a odd specialty of helping people
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with cancer and other chronic illnesses with their sex lives
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and fertility. And now, this year, at the age
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of 73, I've published my first novel, which is called Fission,
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the Novel of Atomic Heartbreak and is loosely based on my
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parents about being in Oak Ridge during the Manhattan Project.
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Wow that is quite incredible. I was wondering what does atomic
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heartbreak mean in that sense? Well, I used fission as a
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metaphor for heartbreak in the book.
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In the beginning of the book, Doris, the heroine, is being
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told about the atomic bomb and what fission is.
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And she says, oh, splitting the it's, it's like heartbreak, like
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splitting the Adam's heart. And during the course of the
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book, she and Rob, her husband, have some troubles in their
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marriage. So I used that fish and metaphor
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a couple of times. Wow.
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That's a really good metaphor. I, I need to brush up on my
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science because I didn't know what it meant.
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I, I stick to the arts, but your background is in clinical
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psychology, like you said, which is a very fascinating topic.
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How did that shape the kind of stories you're drawn to tell?
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I think it makes me focus a lot on characters and
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characterization and I also did a lot of couple therapy and
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writing about couples. So I think I focus a lot on
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relationships and tension and intimacy all those kind of
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things. And I wrote 4 non fiction books
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in the past that were focused on.
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Three of them were self help and one was a textbook.
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And whenever I would write it, a kind of a case example, I would
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always try to make it a composite.
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So I might use, you know, an element from something I had
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heard. But I never wanted to do
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anything where someone could recognize themselves.
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Right, yes, I could imagine that would be a little sticky there.
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So the novel, as you said, is inspired by your parents
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experiences at Oak Ridge. When did you first realize that
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their story could become a fictionalized tale?
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Well, you know, they always told these stories starting early in
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my childhood. And I grew up in the Cold War,
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so there was a lot of concern about the atomic bomb.
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And I asked my dad, why aren't we building a bomb shelter?
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And he said, honey, it wouldn't help.
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But I, as my father, my mother unfortunately died when I was
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around 40. But my dad lived a lot longer
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than that. And as he got in his oldest
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years, he started giving talks to senior citizens groups about
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his Manhattan Project experience and stuff.
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And I think, you know, I thought about videotaping him and
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unfortunately, he had a catastrophic fall and I was a
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little too late to get much of anything on videotape.
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But but I always wanted to do something with their stories,
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and I always loved the idea of writing fiction.
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But I hadn't really had time to do any of fiction writing since
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my college undergrad days. So once I really retired and had
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the time, it occurred to me that this would make a great basis
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for a novel. Absolutely.
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Do you feel like fiction allows us to understand, I guess,
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history in a more emotional way than nonfiction?
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Definitely. And you know, we talk a lot
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about how especially younger people today seem to forget so
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much of history so fast. And I, I've always loved
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historical fiction and I think it's a great fun way to really
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learn about history. And of course, I tried to make
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this book as realistic as I could.
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I did a lot of research, both with primary sources and reading
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books and stuff, and a lot of the plot has fictional elements.
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There's a love triangle in the book between the wife and the
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young couple and a possible Soviet atomic spy.
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And that's certainly nothing that ever happened, as far as I
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know with my parents. But there were two Soviet atomic
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spies in Oak Ridge who operated undetected.
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And we're only really found out almost, you know, maybe just
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five or or 10 years ago. And they managed to escape back
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to the Soviet Union without being caught.
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And they both worked in the same building as my father.
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And like him, they were both electronics engineers.
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So, you know, chances are my parents did meet them or or know
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them, but their names were certainly not anything that was
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familiar from any of their stories.
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Wow, that is interesting. You know, we, we see this, you
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know, in fictional tails, but to know that it actually happened,
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it kind of seems like a little bit of a shiver through you, you
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know, that they're so close. Yeah.
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And another thing that was really cool is that when I
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started researching the book, I knew the name of my father's
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group leader. He was a chemist named Charles
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Coreal, who taught at MIT after the war.
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And I started looking him up online and discovered that his
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daughter had published a whole book of interviews with him
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about his Manhattan Project and later career.
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And so it was on Amazon and I got it.
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And then I contacted her and we're not really good friends,
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but there was a story in that book.
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He mentioned my father just was very junior, and he just
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mentioned him briefly a couple of times.
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But there was a story I had never heard from my parents that
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on the day they announced the bombing of Hiroshima, everybody
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in the lab. It was announced on the radio by
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Truman, and everybody in the lab wanted to listen, but you
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weren't allowed to have radios in the lab 'cause they were
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worried that they could be listening devices for spies.
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So my dad, who was a big radio buff, had his radio from home at
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the lab 'cause it was broken and he needed to repair it.
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And so first one of the other wives was calling into the
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secretary and telling her everything that was being said
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on the radio. And within a few minutes my dad
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had our home radio repaired. They said the heck with, you
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know, the rules today and they turned it on and everybody was
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listening. So I've never heard that story.
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Wow. You know what, you really, you
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got to go back some. My husband, you know, he, his
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grandfather was in World War 2 and I think he was one of them
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that was going to drop the bomb. So I have loved to explore some
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of that family history, but you don't really think about it.
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We didn't have the TV's that we do now.
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Radio was the main way of getting that information.
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So that's very interesting. Yeah, there were hard any TV
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broadcasts at all? It was just at the very
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beginning. I remember still having a black
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and white TV as a child in one of those big old cabinets, you
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know, getting a color to. I don't think we got a color TV
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till I was in maybe middle school or high school.
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Really. Yes.
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When you brought that up, I was thinking I was just watching I
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Love Lucy the other day and for whatever reason I thought about
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when she took that TV apart. I don't know if you ever watched
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I Love Lucy, but it was like one of those so funny.
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I actually was just watching it last night.
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That's what brought my attention to it.
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But she, you know, they were the big cabinet ones like you were
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saying, and it was supposed to just slide out.
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But Lucy being Lucy, you know, she just took the whole thing
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apart and Ricky freaked out because she ruined yet another
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thing. But let's get it off topic.
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But let's get to your writing process.
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You said that you've written some self help books before.
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What was the biggest shift when moving into fiction?
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Well, I think the whole idea of, you know, plotting and whether
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to be a Pam Sir Potter and how much of an outline to have.
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And when I did a first draft, I gave it to a literary agent
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who's, who's kind of a writing mentor and personal friend just
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to do an edit on it. And he said to me, Leslie, are
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you writing a memoir or a novel? And I said, well, I can't write
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a memoir. I wasn't there.
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And and I'm trying to write a novel.
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And he said, well, it needs more drama.
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You know, all these everyday tales are nice, but, you know,
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you need something to bring it together.
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So that's when I started really thinking more about, you know,
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the love triangle element And. And I added in some tension
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about whether the wife was going to follow her husband to Oak
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Ridge. That actually didn't happen in
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real life, you know, things like that.
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So that everyday stories were great for the background in the
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day-to-day life of the novel, but it needed a structure that I
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wasn't used to writing. Yeah.
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Did you find that fiction is more freeing after you got past
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that hump, or do you think that it's more challenging?
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Well, I think it's freeing in a way that that it's more fun.
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I mean, I, I had a fair amount of fun writing my nonfiction
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books because they were, you know, especially the ones that
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were geared for the general public, because that always felt
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more fun to me than writing the professional stuff, which I
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wrote a ton of. And this is even an order of
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magnitude more fun because, you know, you can, you can and
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create a world. When I'm writing dialogue, if
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it's going well, I think a lot of writers say this.
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I feel like my characters are talking to me, you know, and,
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and I'm kind of eavesdropping on their conversation.
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And when it's going well, it's really a great process.
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I really enjoy it. Yes, I feel the same way.
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I was just telling someone the other day, you know, I, I
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created these characters and I had this set in my mind of how
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they were going to be. But once I started writing, they
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just became someone completely slightly different.
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I was like, OK, I guess we're going with that.
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They're taking me wherever we go.
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So that is a very common theme I've noticed with authors of
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fiction. What does your writing process
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look like? You know, we kind of you just
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were talking about the Panzer or whatever.
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I'm a Panzer. I wish I was a plotter, but I'm
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not. How about you?
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Well, at this point, because I've written two other novels
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too, I try to have at least a broad outline, but I don't
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always know everything that's going to happen in between the
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most made your events. And so I, I think I'm halfway
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between a plotter and a Panzer. And, and I also tend to I'll
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write a chapter and then, you know, the next day, maybe, or a
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day or two later, I'll go back and I'll go through that chapter
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and rewrite it and then go forward.
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So I'm, I'm kind of when I say how many drafts I do, it's not
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as discreet as well. I did one draft and then I did
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the second draft. I'm always kind of redrafting as
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I go. Yeah, yeah, I'm the same way.
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So as far as the book goes, like you said, it's during the
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Manhattan Project. But do you see parallels to to
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today's world? It doesn't have to be
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politically, it could be scientifically or even
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emotionally. Oh, I think there are a lot of
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parallels. I mean, it was a real ethical
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dilemma for the people that were involved.
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And I, I talked to my father about this a bit.
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I sat with him the day that public television finally
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broadcast to declassify film of all the injuries to people in
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Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was really, really awful to
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watch. And I turned to him and I said,
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dad, how do you feel about having worked on this?
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And he said, well, you know, you have to realize that we all
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thought the Nazis were on the track to get the bomb, and our
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first job was to get it first. So I think that a lot of the
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dilemma of how the bomb should be used really came about once
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it was tested at Los Alamos and they knew it was going to work.
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And then the only party left in the war was Japan.
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And, and that was the issue of whether to drop it on Japan.
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And my dad was one of about 60-7 people in Oak Ridge who signed a
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petition to Truman not to use the bomb on Japan without a
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demonstration first, hoping that then Japan would surrender.
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The people that, you know, we're in charge of inventing the bomb
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were really hell bent on using it.
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And I don't think the petition never even reached Truman so.
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Really. Yeah, that there's, there's
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definitely some parallels then from then and today because it's
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the same thing over and over again.
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Well, I, I, I think the other thing that's, that's really
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horrendous is that nuclear proliferation and renewed
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building of more nuclear weapons and talking seriously about ever
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using one is all suddenly accelerating and that scares the
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heck out of me. Me too, me too.
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That's, you know, we got to leave a a good world for our
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children. So we need to back off with
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that, but getting into happier times.
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What do you hope readers walk away feeling after finishing the
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book? I think that that life is
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complicated and marriage is complicated and you know, I, I
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do kind of give them a bit of a happily ever after or maybe it's
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the happily ever after for now at the end of the book, you
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know, that they, they kind of reconcile and are looking
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towards a brighter future. But you know, also it's, it's
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really kind of a coming of age story because Doris, like my
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mother was only 19 when she gets married and then she gets
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pregnant immediately and, and goes to Oak Ridge with a toddler
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and has to figure out how to be a mother, how to be a wife, how
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to deal with the fact that she's missed out on the end of her
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college that she was expecting to have, you know, so all those
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kind of disappointments and trying to, and then it follows
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along for a few years after the war.
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So, you know, trying to, to figure out how to have a happy
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family life. I think that's one of the things
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that's a theme in the book. Oh yeah, that's a good one.
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So you've had such an accomplished career, from
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psychology to entrepreneurship to writing.
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What has surprised you most about this chapter of your life?
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You know, I think one of the things that surprised me the
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most is how much I enjoy my networking with other women
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writers. And a lot of them are around my
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age. We're all the old ladies of the,
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the, the writing group and I, I've become really involved with
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the Women's Fiction Writers Association has a historical
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fiction group and we meet online every week.
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And I live in Houston and I don't have that many close
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friends locally, but it's really nice to interact with friends
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online and, you know, share marketing tips and, you know,
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talk about our books. And I'm one of the volunteers
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now who helps coordinate those meetings.
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So, and also I have a sub stack. So I've met other people on sub
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stack. So, you know, that was a
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surprise. I didn't really expect that
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social, that social benefit from writing because I think of
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writing as a kind of solitary thing.
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Sure, absolutely. And those those groups can help
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immensely. Really, you're not like an
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island anymore, you know, You're like a, a community.
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I noticed that too. I was reluctant to join them to
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start off with, but I'm so glad I did.
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I've learned a lot. You know, we've become friends
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and it's, it's nice because where I live, you know, there's
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not a lot of people around here either.
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So that is a nice community. That's a good thing.
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I met 2 two other writers when I went to a workshop in Provence
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in 2023 and we've been meeting online ever since and critiquing
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each other's work. So we have a mini critique group
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and last November we all went to the Kauai Writers Conference
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together and had a real blast. So that was a lot of fun.
00:16:41
That's great. And it's nice to have other
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writers that you can like turn to, especially before the
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editor, because once the editor gets it, you know it's, but it's
00:16:48
nice to have some friends first that you could take a look.
00:16:52
So if you could go back and give one piece of advice to someone
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living in Oak Ridge during the Manhattan Project, knowing what
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we know now, what would you tell them?
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Boy, well, there, there's a lot of ongoing, you know, nuclear
00:17:05
pollution in Oak Ridge, but I'm not sure how to tell somebody to
00:17:09
try to avoid that. Even my dad got a got a overdose
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of radiation accidentally when some of his buddies who were
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working on a hot sample on the other side of a wall forgot to
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shield it with lead bricks on the wall where my dad's desk
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was. And luckily, he was OK.
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And he never got cancer and lived to be 87.
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But, you know, they're even still now cleaning up parts of
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Oak Ridge. And there was also, you know,
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tremendous amount of secrecy in Oak Ridge.
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And my parents were both told about the bomb right at the
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beginning, which was really unusual for such a junior
00:17:48
person. And my mom was included.
00:17:50
So it must have been really hard for them to keep that secret
00:17:54
when everybody around them, a lot of people didn't know.
00:17:57
My dad's work group knew, but, you know, none of the other
00:18:01
wives, probably very few of them knew what was going on.
00:18:04
Everybody had no idea what they were working on there so.
00:18:08
I thought that was intense and scary.
00:18:10
So where can the listeners find you?
00:18:13
Well, I had an I have an author website.
00:18:16
It's just Leslie Schover author and I have a sub stack called
00:18:20
Nuclear Fiction Newsletter where I write about behind the book
00:18:24
stories. And recently I've also done a
00:18:26
whole series on writing sex scenes.
00:18:29
I thought I'd transfer some of my expertise from being a
00:18:33
psychologist into, you know, writing craft issues.
00:18:37
And so I gave a talk to to the group I'm involved involved with
00:18:41
it and do a series of sub stack posts on why it's so hard to
00:18:45
write sex scenes and embarrassing and how to try to
00:18:49
do it better and make it part of your story.
00:18:52
That's really interesting. And that's true.
00:18:54
You know, you don't realize that I've only written a couple.
00:18:57
And each time I'm like, oh, this is weird, but you know, readers
00:19:01
want it so. I think it can be a legitimate
00:19:04
part of your story, a way to reveal more things about your
00:19:07
characters in the plot. So.
00:19:09
Absolutely, absolutely. Well, Leslie is this has been
00:19:13
wonderful. Thank you so much for spending
00:19:14
time with me today. Thank you.
00:19:16
What stayed with me after this conversation was the idea that
00:19:19
history isn't just dates and headlines.
00:19:21
It's marriages, secrets, fears, ambition, and ordinary people
00:19:25
trying to navigate extraordinary moments.
00:19:28
Leslie's story reminds us that fiction can sometimes bring us
00:19:31
closer to the emotional truth of history rather than facts alone.
00:19:35
If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to check out Vision, a
00:19:37
novel of atomic heartbreak, and follow Leslies work online.
00:19:41
And as always, thank you for listening to Plot Twist Radio.