Children of Radium

by Joe Dunthorne

Genres: Biography, Science

Paperback

About the author

Joe Dunthorne was born and brought up in Swansea, and is a graduate of the University of East Anglia's Creative Writing MA, where he was awarded the Curtis Brown prize.

His poetry has been published in magazines and anthologies and has featured on Channel 4, and BBC Radio 3 and 4. A pamphlet collection, Joe Dunthorne: Faber New Poets 5 was published in 2010.

His first novel, Submarine, the story of a dysfunctional family in Swansea narrated by Oliver Tate, aged 15, was published in 2008.

Reviews

[Ben Parker · Rating 5 out of 5]

An extraordinary family memoir, wrapped in a meandering investigative timeline. Witty and sardonic about grim material; he has a light-touch writing style I want to find more of. There are smart takes, emotional undercurrents and a restrained amazement and affection about lives swept up and tormented by history.

[Recommended by the cashier at a bookshop so that works sometimes…]

[Tom Parker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Philippe Sands meets Jon Ronson. A memoir of tragedy and deception told with humour and humility. A little too jumpy and disjointed in the final third, but very glad I read this and it makes me want to read more Dunthorne. Well done to my dad for recommending this to me.

[Nicola · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not sure how I feel about this one. Compelling, and it provided a window into some of the mundane horrors and consequences across Europe of Nazi Germany in a way that didn’t shy away from the everyday evil of it all - compelling, murky, oblique, memorable. I yearned for more to hold on to; but this, too, is a consequence of atrocity: the tearing up of records, the burying of attempts to bear witness.

I suspect I’ll be thinking about this one for some time to come.

[Tiffany Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

A compelling and gripping insight into history surrounding radioactive materials, chemicals and poisons written by the great grandson of a man who was involved (knowingly or unknowingly) in the production of gases and gas masks used by the Nazi’s in WW2.

Again I’ve learned things from those years which I wouldn’t have if I hadn’t picked up this book. As well as acknowledging the difficulties and the unreliability of his grandfathers memoir; he highlighted people who dedicated their lives to protecting others.

It’s an honest and thought provoking story written in an investigative style with comedic elements particularly when referring to members of his family and their thoughts and comments.

[Phillip Ramm · Rating 4 out of 5]

Joe Dunthorne "deep dives" into the unfinished memoir of his grandfather, a Jewish chemist who worked in Nazi Germany and finds more than he anticipated, not great, not terrible, OK some of it terrible, about the secret history of his entire family as he tries to fill in the blanks of the years leading up WWII and beyond.
Starting with his grandfather's invention of radium enhanced toothpaste, we move onto darker and darker topics. Written for quick reading in short chapters, I flew through it and really was impressed by how well it hung together. Some great lines too, about the Nazis using that toothpaste, so that "the troops pushing eastwards, brutalising and murdering, burning entire villages to the ground, could do so with radiant teeth."
Coincidentally, I was wearing a tee bearing that line from the Chernobyl TV series, "3.6 Roentgen, not great, not terrible", while reading the book in a cafe and didn't realise until afterwards.

[Viv · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the narration, but it wasn't addictive. There is something to be said about the rawness in which Dunthorne reveals his family's life, especially according to a manuscript that may have never been found.

[Allan S Ferguson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading this and learned a number of things while reading it

[Mary Jackson · Rating 5 out of 5]

sad, at times very difficult, and also humourous at unexpected moments.

[Anthony Luzio · Rating 4 out of 5]

Worth reading for this line alone: "Either way, it created the uneasy situation in which my great-grandfather's work might have been far more lethal without an intervention from Hitler."

[Karen · Rating 3.5 out of 5]

Most interesting.