Niwot author Paul Gibb and "Haunted by Hiroshima"

Paul Gibb grew up in a family with a father who worked on the Manhattan Project, and a mother who was an anti war activist. The Niwot resident described his first novel, "Haunted by Hiroshima," to a standing-room-only audience at Inkberry Books Feb. 10, saying, "I've rewritten the lives of my parents. It's been wonderful therapy for me. Growing up I could feel the tension."

Gibb grew up in Beverly, Massachusetts, where the Manhattan Project, processing uranium and plutonium for use in atomic weapons, was underway. "My father kept a piece of plutonium on his desk," he said. Gibb's father, a chemistry professor at Tufts University, lived to 93, in spite of his exposure to radiation while working on the project.

Gibb explained that while his mother knew her husband was working on a top secret project, she did not know what the project was until the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945.

The novel is a fictional account of the interaction between the scientist and the pacifist. Gibb read from two chapters of the book, which "explores the psyches and interactions of the two main characters" according to the book summary.

The story begins with Alexander and Phoebe, the husband and wife, on the day after Hiroshima was destroyed and follows their lives through the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. As the story begins, Alexander defends his role in creating the atomic bomb, believing that it would end all wars, while Phoebe responds, "Can't you see, we'll all be blown up someday."

Gibb described to the audience the parallels from his own upbringing, where his scientist father was harsh, and rarely offered praise or a smile to Gibb and his sister. He also spoke of how his mother eventually became addicted to tranquilizers and alcohol, but moved to Boulder and became sober the last seven years of her life. "She became a new person," he recalled.

"The first chapter was a fictional recreation of what I had been told over the years by my mother," Gibb wrote in a postscript. "She had become very open and talkative once my father divorced her." He described his father as "always defensive about what he had done."

Gibb was born in 1945, but did not follow in his father's footsteps, instead obtaining a degree in English. He has an older sister, Bobbi Gibb, who was famous in her own right as the first woman to run the Boston Marathon.

Among those in attendance at the reading were James Mariner, who Gibb credited with helping him through the writing and publishing process, which took 11 years. "Jim helped edit it, and I workshopped it with a writing group in Loveland," Gibb explained. He also credited his wife, Meri Gibb, with her encouragement during the process.

The audience for the event, hosted by Inkberry Books owners Gene Hayworth and Keith Waters, asked many questions during a Q & A session following the reading. Gibb said that he had done a lot of background reading while writing the book, and hoped that the recently released "Oppenheimer" movie would create interest in his fictional account of a family deeply and personally impacted by the development of the atomic bomb.

The book is available at Inkberry Books in Niwot's Cottonwood Square shopping center.