Let It Destroy You

Name: Let It Destroy You
ISBN: 9780771000430

A Novel

Harriet Alida Lye

WINNER OF THE CANADIAN JEWISH LITERARY AWARD FOR FICTION
VINE NATIONAL CANADIAN JEWISH BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION SHORTLIST

Inspired by the true story of a dangerous atomic weapon and the man who designed it, here is a stunning novel of morality, creation, and loss from the acclaimed author of The Honey Farm and Natural Killer.

It is August 12, 1945. Tomorrow, August Snow will be tried at the International War Crimes Court for patenting a more lethal variation on the atomic bomb. He invented a radiation machine to cure his young daughter’s cancer, despite knowing that the very same technology was capable of great destruction, and inevitably profited from disaster. But are his intentions relevant when the fate of the world is at stake?

August’s former wife, June, will also attend the hearing. Restless in her Hague hotel room the night before, she keeps watch over their daughter and reflects on the events that brought them here. She had nothing to do with making the bomb. But is she innocent? Wouldn’t any wife and mother have done the same thing in her shoes? And now, will it cost her everything?

Inspired by the physicist Leó Szilárd and the letters he wrote his wife, Gertrud "Trude" Weiss, Let It Destroy You is told in parallel narratives and ventures from Budapest to Berlin to Colorado, and back to Europe. It is a love story about two people whose destinies are bound by everything they share, and all that they’ve kept from one another. Above all, it is a testament to the logic-defying love of a parent who will stop at nothing to protect their child.

"Drawing on letters and other documents of the time, the author invites us into the marriage of August and June Snow, as they await August’s trial at the International War Crimes Court. August has been accused of patenting a more lethal variation of the atomic bomb. His reason for developing this terrifying technology is not for the destruction it could unleash but as a desperate attempt to save his child. This compelling novel speaks of power: of individual pride, of gender roles, of world-wide destruction. Both utterly intimate and terrifyingly vast, with gorgeous prose and luminescent intelligence, Harriet Alida Lye challenges the reader to ask the deeply ethical questions about the choices we make in life." —Jury Citation, Vine National Canadian Jewish Book Awards (Fiction)

“A dexterous hand at mood and pace, Toronto writer Lye . . . examines idealism and ambition, intent and outcome, and, with particular acuity, marriage and the complex, unpredictable ways its faltering can play out.” —Toronto Star

“A complex and magnificent drama . . . Lye’s great achievement is the creation of two very different and fully realized first-person narrators, and her storytelling style luxuriates equally in their interiority and their extraordinary circumstances.” —Quill & Quire

“Reading Harriet Alida Lye’s prose is to be given the delicious gift of sinking deeper into the human experience. Let It Destroy You offers us this gift through the remarkable story of June and August, lovers fraught with passion and tension that comes alive on the page, as their pursuits of love and science collide spectacularly. This is a story of how the atomic bomb was born, but it’s also a tender and intelligent exploration of two people trying to understand who they are—and what they’re capable of—through the lens of one another, and the daughter they share. Lye’s singular observations about life and exquisite characterizing details tell us so much about a person, a moment, a feeling. This stunning novel cements her as one of my very favourite writers. Let It Destroy You is exceptional.” —Ashley Audrain, international bestselling author of The Push

“The paradox of loneliness in marriage, the shockwave of parental love—staged against history’s most devastating invention, the story of August and June Snow is a tender, anguished duet, glimmering with intelligence and grace.” — Sarah Henstra, Governor General's Award-winning author of The Red Word

“Let It Destroy You is a strikingly intimate novel with profound reverberations. August and June's love feels as touching as it is cruel, and their determination to protect their daughter will remind you of the staggering potential of science and our search for those little bursts of light in our darkest hours.” —Ellen Keith, bestselling author of The Dutch Wife

About the Author

Harriet Alida Lye is the author of the novels The Honey Farm and Let It Destroy You, the memoir Natural Killer, and the forthcoming novel Mother Daughter Lover Clown. She is also co-author of the picture book Serge the Snail Without a Shell. Her essays and reporting have appeared in The New York Times and The Globe and Mail, among other publications. Her novel Let It Destroy You, set in 1945 on the eve of a war crimes trial, centers on a marriage, a parent’s love, and the moral cost of invention, and it earns its place in Jewish letters through that sustained ethical inquiry. It won the 2024 Canadian Jewish Literary Award for Fiction and was shortlisted for the Vine Award for Canadian Jewish Literature.

Born and raised in Richmond Hill, Ontario, Lye studied philosophy and English at the University of King’s College and spent years in Paris, where she worked at Shakespeare & Company. She teaches creative writing at the University of Toronto’s School of Continuing Studies, mentors and edits other authors, and lives in Toronto.