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Children of Radium

A Buried Inheritance

Format: Hardback
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Off-beat, irreverent and subversive – a Jewish family memoir about convenient delusions and unsayable truths, from the acclaimed author of the cult classic novel, Submarine

'The best book I’ve read in the past year . . . A masterpiece' Financial Times

‘A slippery marvel [and] a quixotic voyage into the heart of 20th-century darkness’ Observer

‘Poignant and profound, comic and unconventional – and genuinely, searingly meaningful’ The New York Times


Joe Dunthorne had always wanted to write about his great-grandfather, Siegfried: an eccentric scientist who invented radioactive toothpaste and a Jewish refugee from the Nazis who returned to Germany under cover of the Berlin Olympics to pull off a heist on his own home.

The only problem was that Siegfried had already written the book of his life – an unpublished, two-thousand page memoir so dry and rambling that none of his living descendants had managed to read it. And, as it turned out when Joe finally read the manuscript himself, it told a very different story from the one he thought he knew…

Thus begins a mystery which stretches across the twentieth century and around the world, from Berlin to Ankara, New York, Glasgow and eventually London – a mystery about the production of something much more sinister than toothpaste. On the trail of one ‘jolly grandpa’ with a patchy psychiatric history and an encyclopaedic knowledge of poison gases, Joe Dunthorne is forced to confront the uncomfortable questions that lie at the heart of every family. Can we ever understand where we come from? Is every family in the end a work of fiction? And even if the truth can be found – will we be able to live with it?

Children of Radium is a remarkable, searching meditation on individual and collective inheritance. Witty and wry, deeply humane and endlessly surprising, it considers the long half-life of trauma, the weight of guilt and the ever-evasive nature of the truth.

Write a Review
  • 5
    Family secrets uncovered.

    Posted by Anne Pope on 28th Apr 2025

    This book is extremely well written, very readable, and yet harrowing at times, as Joe Dunthorne explores his families history in pre-war Germany. What starts off as an innocent exploration of his great-grandfather's life, soon becomes more dark. Once I had started the book I couldn'…

    This book is extremely well written, very readable, and yet harrowing at times, as Joe Dunthorne explores his families history in pre-war Germany. What starts off as an innocent exploration of his great-grandfather's life, soon becomes more dark. Once I had started the book I couldn't put it down until I reached the end. Highly recommended.

Authors:
Dunthorne, Joe
Year Published:
2025
Country of Publication:
United Kingdom
Format:
Hardback
ISBN:
9780241517468
Number of Pages:
320
Publication Date:
03/04/2025
Publisher:
Penguin Books Ltd
Language:
English
Place of Publication:
London
SKU:
9780241517468

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