Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love and Fallout

So I order this to read for our book club, thinking it would be just a normal account of the Curies' discovery of radioactivity. The book arrives. Surely there must be some mistake; this looks like something for children -- pages filled with big colored illustrations mingled with occasional paragraphs of handwritten text. But no, while often childlike, the book is never childish. And the mixture of media gives only a hint of how widely author-artist Lauren Redniss has foraged to fill her cornucopia of art, science, and history.She starts by apologizing to Marie Curie for ignoring her insistence that "there is no connection between my scientific work and the facts of private life." Not only does she make such a connection, she glories in it. Look at the chapter headings of the first part: Symmetry, Magnetism, Fusion; scientific terms, but also personal ones. In the opening chapter, Redniss portrays the separate lives of Pierre and Marie in symmetry, on opposite pages, before showing the magnetism that drew them together as a couple, and the fusion that produced a child. But she also tells us of Pierre's work on the symmetry of crystals, and Marie's on magnetism and radiation. The question of atomic fusion (and fission) lies far in the future.But Redniss goes there too. At the very end of the first part, amid drawings of Marie and Pierre embracing in their laboratory, she has the words: "The new science needed a name." Turn the page to a double spread glowing in a muted cloudburst, containing only the words, "I coined the term radioactivity." Then look again, and you realize that the cloudburst is really an atomic blast -- not at all in your face, but lurking there as a threat.Although the longer second part continues with the story of the Curies, it strikes off sparks in many other directions: spiritualism, for example, the dancer Loïe Fuller, a list of famous Poles. A photograph of a man receiving radium treatment for a tumor in 1920 is juxtaposed with the first-hand account of a tumor survivor in 2001. Soon, we are jumping to Chernobyl, the Manhattan Project, and Three-Mile Island, and each time Redniss finds some unexpected witness to bring her message home. An FBI surveillance report; photos of the mutant zinnias and roses found near Harrisburg; the reports of a biologist studying wildlife in the Ukraine. One of the most effective spreads in the book is also the simplest, a black paper cutout used by a survivor of Hiroshima to show how her father's blackened skin peeled away at a touch."A tale of love and fallout," says the subtitle. Nothing is predictable, neither the great discoveries nor their unexpected consequences, and love is the least logical thing of all. So by jumping around in subject and time, Redniss is only celebrating the power of surprise. She is thinking outside the box, way outside. The skill with which she balances the glory of the Curies' discoveries and their continued benefits against their terrible consequences would be remarkable even in a book that was all text. But the illustrations offer a further layer of unpredictability. In almost no case does she simply illustrate the action; her drawings are bold, somewhat expressionist, even disturbing. I can't say that I like them as art, but as a constantly shifting matrix for a subject that refuses to be pinned down, their effect is powerful indeed.My only real complaint is that patches on the hard cover are printed in slightly raised ink like fine sandpaper, that you fear coming off on your hands. But close the cover and put out the lights, and you will see their purpose: the book literally glows in the dark!

This is the first review I've ever been compelled to write. I also bought "Radioactive" after reading the New York Times' glowing praise. I couldn't put it down. After I read it, I couldn't go to sleep. I promptly ordered a dozen copies for friends, and wished I had the means to buy this book for everyone I know. This book changed my perspective on art, history, science and storytelling.First, the little things: the author created her own type based on the title pages of the New York Public Library; through evident hard work and determination, she tracked down astonishing anecdotes, photographs, gravestone rubbings, x-rays, and little known facts; the bibliography includes a breathtaking spectrum of sources, from interviews, lectures, biographies (in English and French), scientific journals, classified documents, correspondence, maps, notebooks, newspapers, scientific society proceedings; the illustrations are stunning. What unfolds on pages 83 - 85 is profoundly affecting and viscerally unforgettable. I am embarrassed by the number of superlatives in this paragraph.Now, the big thing: this book, like the story it tells, is a miracle.The reviewer below is entitled to his opinion. But may I offer a counterpoint. On page 94 Marie recalls a day in the meadows with her family, picking flowers. And there is an illustration of buttercups. Pages later, when Marie learns that Pierre is dead: "The flowers he had picked in the country remained fresh on the table." And then, let's say for curiosity's sake, you flip to the Notes and see this citation: "flowers...on the table." Curie Archives, microfilm, 4300.Perhaps you will "learn" "more" from a Wikipedia article. But I have rarely encountered a book that has made me feel so strongly and care more deeply about a topic (an entire world, really) that, prior to opening the cover, I had little interest in. Buy this book at once if you are a humanist; if you know anyone -- a journalist, artist, doctor, scientist -- looking for inspiration; if you believe in the confounding collision of serendipity, discovery, destruction and love; if you've never read a graphic novel; if there is a curious young woman in your life who you suspect might one day change the world with her intellect, or desperately wishes to. This book earns and deserves the attention of those of us who live beyond Wikipedia where stories are told, hearts swell and break, the buttercups matter (No. The buttercups are essential.), and man discovers a way to make mutant roses and glowing tubes of fairy light that change the course of history.

Writer/artist Lauren Redniss came up with a beautiful, charming work expressing the tale of Marie and Pierre Curie -- Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love and Fallout. It's part book, part art, sometimes described as a graphic novel...but if it is a graphic novel it is not the traditional form.Redniss says on her site: "I made the artwork for the book using a process called "cyanotype." Cyanotype is a camera‐less photographic technique in which paper is coated with light‐sensitive chemicals. When the chemically-treated paper is exposed to the sun's ultraviolet rays, it turns a deep blue color. Photographic imaging was critical to both the discovery of X-rays and of radioactivity, so it made sense to me to use a process based on the idea of exposure to create the images in Radioactive."The result is astounding.Redniss weaves the love story of Marie and Pierre with the far-reaching repercussions of their work: the atomic bomb, medicine, space exploration.You have to read it slowly, due to the strange font, but that's ok. The slower pace means you take more time to puruse the strange artwork. Also, the font is relevant. Redniss says on her website: "For the text, I designed a font based on the title pages of 18th and 19th Century manuscripts in the New York Public Library's collections. It is named Eusapia LR for the croquet-playing, sexually ravenous Italian Spiritualist medium whose séances the Curies attended. Yup."Also, the cover glows in the dark.

Great read

Cuando vi la película Radioactive (2019) descubrí que estaba basada en este libro, así que decidí leerlo. Lo primero, tanto la encuadernación y todas las páginas son preciosas, artísticas, originales y diferentes. No digo más porque para mí es importante llegar a un libro (o una película) sabiendo lo mínimo posible. Recomiendo, si se puede, leer el libro con la música etérea de la película... Finalmente añadiré que es un merecido homenaje a Marie y Pierre Curie.

Read the book in few days, it is very well written in the sense that all information is backed up by evidence. The book is nicely done, it glows when seen in the dark.. beautiful book to be reminded of the two beautiful souls.. my role models

Awesome

Enjoyed this book. (Didn't really expect to!) Liked the way the author wrote about Marie and Paul Curie and their family's lives and research and adroitly brought in more modern problems and issues. And I really like her art. And the typeface!

Voici un ouvrage qui donne envie non seulement de lire, mais aussi de découvrir Pierre et Marie Curie. Absolument épatant, et qui plus est avec une couverture phosphorescente.