RACHEL ROBBINS & JULIA FINE, "THE SOUND OF A THOUSAND STARS"

Rachel Robbins and beloved local author Julia Fine will be at the Book Cellar to celebrate Robbins' new book, The Sound of A Thousand Stars!

ABOUT THE BOOK

In this sweeping historical debut, two Jewish physicists form an inseverable bond amidst fear and uncertainty while working on the mysterious Manhattan Project.

Eerily mirroring modern day questions of wartime ethics, and sure to captivate readers of Kate Quinn and Bonnie Garmus, The Sound of A Thousand Stars explores what it means to survive–at any cost.

Alice Katz is a young Jewish physicist, one of the only female doctoral students at her university, studying with the famed Dr. Oppenheimer. Her well-to-do family wants her to marry a man of her class and settle down. Instead, Alice answers her country’s call to come to an unnamed city in the desert to work on a government project shrouded in secrecy.

At Los Alamos, Alice meets Caleb Blum, a poor Orthodox Jew who has been assigned to the explosives division. Around them are other young scientists and engineers who have quietly left their university posts to come live in the desert.

No one seems to know exactly what they are working on–what they do know is that it is a race, and that they must beat the Nazis in developing an unspeakable weapon. In this atmosphere of fear and uncertainty, and despite their many differences, Alice and Caleb find themselves drawn to one another.

Inspired by the author’s grandparents, and sure to appeal to fans of Good Night, Irene, The Sound of A Thousand Stars is a propulsive novel about love in desperate times, the consequences of our decisions, and the roles we play in history.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Rachel Robbins received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is a tenured assistant professor at Malcolm X College, one of the City Colleges of Chicago. A visual artist and two-time Pushcart Prize-nominated writer, her paintings have materialized on public transit, children’s daycare centers, and Chicago’s Magnificent Mile. She is the author of In Lieu of Flowers, available through Tortoise Books, and The Sound of a Thousand Stars, forthcoming from Alcove Press, Penguin Random House Audio, and Hodder & Stoughton, an imprint of Hachette UK.

CONVERSATION PARTNER 

Julia Fine is the author of The Upstairs House, winner of the Chicago Review of Books Award for Fiction, and What Should Be Wild, which was shortlisted for the Bram Stoker Award for Superior First Novel. Her third novel, Maddalena and the Dark, came out from Flatiron in June 2023. She teaches in Chicago, where she lives in her family.

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