The Prize is a long, complex novel about six Nobel laureates assembling in Stockholm, Sweden, for the awards ceremony. Through their stories Wallace interweaves four issues of concern for Americans in the 1960s: the Technological Revolution, the Sexual Revolution, the Holocaust, and the Cold War.

He also describes the nominating process and the complicating balancing act forced upon the Academy by national, ethnic, and political rivalries.

The five scientists among Wallace's Nobel Prize winners are on the cutting edge of experimentation. Wallace attributes to them discoveries in heart transplant techniques, sperm preservation, and solar energy that within a decade became realities. Wallace's anticipation of these developments makes the novel seem, as the cliched blurb puts it, "as exciting as tomorrow's headlines."

The sixth laureate, a writer, discovers the Sexual Revolution in Stockholm. In 1962 Sweden was America's metonymy for sexual liberation and sophistication. In Sweden nudity is...