A Hole In Texas is a novel by Herman Wouk

Herman Wouk

Herman Wouk is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American author of novels including The Caine Mutiny, The Winds of War, and War and Remembrance.-Biography:...

. Published in 2004

2004 in literature

The year 2004 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:* Canada Reads selects Guy Vanderhaeghe's The Last Crossing to be read across the nation....

, the book describes the adventures of a high-energy physicist following the surprise announcement that a Chinese physicist (with whom he had a long-ago romance) had discovered the long-sought Higgs boson

Higgs boson

The Higgs boson is a hypothetical massive elementary particle that is predicted to exist by the Standard Model of particle physics. Its existence is postulated as a means of resolving inconsistencies in the Standard Model...

.

Parts of the plot are based on the aborted Superconducting Super Collider

Superconducting Super Collider

The Superconducting Super Collider was a particle accelerator complex under construction in the vicinity of Waxahachie, Texas that was set to be world's largest and most energetic, surpassing the current record held by the Large Hadron Collider. Its planned ring circumference was with an energy...

 project.

Published by Little, Brown and Company

Little, Brown and Company

Little, Brown and Company is a publishing house established by Charles Coffin Little and his partner, James Brown. Since 2006 it has been a constituent unit of Hachette Book Group USA.-19th century:...

, ISBN 0-316-52590-1.

Literary significance and reception

Kirkus Reviews

Kirkus Reviews

Kirkus Reviews is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus . Kirkus serves the book and literary trade sector, including libraries, publishers, literary and film agents, film and TV producers and booksellers. Kirkus Reviews is published on the first and 15th of each month...

 said that A Hole In Texas was "Ingenious. Absolutely ingenious." Publishers Weekly

Publishers Weekly

Publishers Weekly, aka PW, is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers and literary agents...

 called it "Occasionally corny but also playful, thoughtful and passionate". The journal Science

Science (journal)

Science is the academic journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and is one of the world's top scientific journals....

 said that Wouk "accurately depicts science as an often interactive and collegial enterprise", and that the novel offers a "refreshing contrast with the treatments of mad scientists that are so abundant in literature and popular culture." The review in Nature

Nature (journal)

Nature, first published on 4 November 1869, is ranked the world's most cited interdisciplinary scientific journal by the Science Edition of the 2010 Journal Citation Reports...

 had some criticism saying that the "scientific explanations are pat and usually
come in the form of long e-mails that bog down the plot", the discussion of the Chinese

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

people "verge on racism" and the book's ending "falls flat".