Luminous Bodies
A Novel of Marie Curie
Devon Jersild’s riveting novel Luminous Bodies centers the tumultuous yet fulfilling personal life of legendary scientist Marie Curie.
Curie, the first woman to receive the Nobel Prize and the first person to win one twice, exhibited single-minded focus and deep respect for the scientific method, resulting in the transformative discovery of radioactivity. Both in and outside the laboratory, she was devoted to her husband and partner Pierre, whose accidental death splintered her work and family life. In this piercing, reflective novel, Curie’s work in the lab falls to the periphery, and her relationships take center stage—those with her parents and siblings, her colleagues, her two daughters, her suffragette friends, and physicist Paul Langevin. A love affair with the latter strangled her public reputation.
Curie narrates, her voice studious and retrospective, from the vantage of 1915, reflecting on her affair with Langevin and her bouts of depression. She refused to let either stifle her scholarship. Eloquent, meditative passages capture her anxiety and determination as she seeks novelty in her work and authenticity in her relationships, even as her thoughts remain “like water running downhill to Paul.” When despondent or ostracized, Curie’s relief at disappearing into the joys and pains of motherhood diversifies her psychological portfolio.
Characters beyond Curie bloom to life, too, including her sweet, thoughtful husband, Pierre, whose encouragement and vitality haunt the latter part of the book. Langevin’s narcissistic wife feigns injuries for sympathy, even as she throws knives at her husband in fits of anger, yet she is far from a perfect villain; Langevin’s magnetic draw toward her drama amplifies the tension, and Curie maintains her sympathy for the woman’s insecurity and isolation.
Heartrending and intelligent, Luminous Bodies is a beautiful biographical novel about a daughter, wife, mother, lover, immigrant, and scientist who was more than the sum of her parts.
Reviewed by
Aimee Jodoin
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