Luminous Bodies - by Devon Jersild (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

"Captivating."
--Christian Science Monitor

"Marie Curie's professional achievements aren't slighted in Jersild's first novel, Luminous Bodies, but what fascinates her are the Nobel-Prize-winning scientist's personal struggles in a patriarchal world . . . Choosing to narrate Curie's experiences in an inventive first-person voice adds immediacy to a story filled with dramatic triumphs and disappointments."
--New York Times

"Devon Jersild's beautiful novel is alchemic, bringing Marie Curie--the scientist, the lover, the mother, the immigrant, the Nobel Laureate--to life. This tense, moving, riveting story burns hot: it's historical fiction at its very best."
--Chris Bohjalian, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Flight Attendant and Hour of the Witch

In the popular imagination, Marie Curie was all brilliance and unshakeable drive. Luminous Bodies is a tender exploration of the vulnerable woman behind the legend.

In the vein of Georgia (Dawn Tripp) and Matrix (Lauren Groff), the narrative follows Marie from girlhood in Poland to the battlefields of World War I, focusing on her marriage, widowhood, and love affair with physicist Paul Langevin--after which she was ostracized from society and the scientific community. Haunted by self-doubt, she turned to Hertha Ayrton, the scientist and suffragist who drew her back from the brink of suicide.

How did Curie endure all this, and still achieve so much? What sustained her rich emotional, sexual, and intellectual life--and what were the costs? Jersild explores these questions in this radiant novel.

Review Quotes

"This captivating historical-fiction debut novel brings Nobel laureate Marie Curie to vibrant life."
--Christian Science Monitor

"Marie Curie's professional achievements aren't slighted in Jersild's first novel, Luminous Bodies, but what fascinates her are the Nobel-Prize-winning scientist's personal struggles in a patriarchal world . . . Choosing to narrate Curie's experiences in an inventive first-person voice adds immediacy to a story filled with dramatic triumphs and disappointments."
--New York Times

"Jersild brilliantly fictionalizes Marie Curie's dramatic life by imagining with verve, lyricism, and empathy the scientist's tumultuous inner world . . . [This] ravishing biographical novel, set within the larger story of the fight for women's rights and capturing the demands and thrills of science, glows with evocative psychological and societal insights."
--Booklist

"With a gimlet eye, Jersild . . . spotlight[s] the double standards to which male and female scientists were held and the way Curie, understandably devastated by her treatment by journalists and the public, managed to pull herself back into her research and new discoveries through the force of her will. A colorful re-creation of an incomparable life."
--Kirkus Reviews

"[The story] is told convincingly and movingly and imagines the inner life and challenges Marie Curie faced . . . Highly recommended."
--Historical Novels Review

"In Luminous Bodies, Devon Jersild's sweeping, psychologically penetrating fiction about Marie Curie, the intimate details of Curie's life are so compelling, and so rooted in character, that the reader becomes Marie, the woman behind the famous name. I find myself thinking about this character, musing over certain moments in the novel, replaying dialogue and description in my head. It's what I do to prolong a story that I don't want to end, and that I want to place in other people's hands."
--Julia Alvarez, author of How the García Girls Lost Their Accents and In the Time of the Butterflies

"Devon Jersild's writing vibrates with a unique energy. Her Luminous Bodies shows us how life's difficulties and contradictions can also light us with passionate possibilities."
--Ann Beattie, author of Onlookers and The New Yorker Stories

"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."
--Foreword Reviews

"Devon Jersild's beautiful novel is alchemic, bringing Marie Curie--the scientist, the lover, the mother, the immigrant, the Nobel Laureate--to life. This tense, moving, riveting story burns hot: it's historical fiction at its very best."

--Chris Bohjalian, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Flight Attendant and Hour of the Witch

About the Author

Devon Jersild is a writer and practicing clinical psychologist in Weybridge, Vermont. She won an O. Henry Award for a story that appeared in the Kenyon Review, and has written for many other publications, including New England Review, Times Literary Supplement, New York Times, USA Today, and Redbook. She has also been Associate Editor at New England Review and Associate Director of the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference. Her book of nonfiction, Happy Hours: Alcohol in a Woman's Life, was widely acclaimed. Luminous Bodies is her first novel.