Ellen Klages' "The Green Glass Sea": Picnic at the site of first test of the atom bomb

I found the casualness with which this story is told a bit difficult to bear.

A few weeks after testing the atom bomb, the family of Dr Phillip Gordon from Manhattan Project takes a trip to the test site - a place called Trinity.

Mostly told through a 10 year old girl, Dewey Kerrigan - who is barely comprehending the enormity of what is going on. The atmosphere at the Los Alamos establishment & later the physical state of the test site - the later a sea of green glass created by high temperature fusing of the sands at the test site.

Full text of this story is available for download.

Fact sheet.

"The Green Glass Sea", short story, review
First published: Strange Horizons, 6 September 2004.
Rating: B