Atoms, Bombs, and Eskimo Kisses: A Memoir of Father and Son

In this heartfelt counterpart to his father's stiff-backed 1993 autobiography, A Mind Always in Motion, journalist and professor Segre, who died in May of this year, attempts to shed some thawing light on the cold peace between father and son that lasted until Emilio Segre's death in 1989, despite the affectionate nose-rubbings of the title. All children are said to grow up worshiping their fathers as heroes; the younger Segre is not the exception that proves this rule. Even under his son's literary microscope, the elder Segre proves exceptional: a protege of Enrico Fermi, a member of the team that developed the atomic bomb at Los Alamos, co-discoverer of the antiproton, winner of the 1959 Nobel Prize. This father may be an Italian Jewish refugee Superman, as Claudio tells us a few too many times, but he's also a world-class cacadubbi, a naysayer who always ``fixes on the cloud and grumbles that the silver lining will tarnish anyway.'' Claudio's account of his midlife attempt to crack his father's stony front is effectively excruciating, but throughout the book he has trouble disentangling himself from Superman's cape strings enough to tell his own story. (Sept.)