Publication Date: April 1, 2025
Print Length: 240 pages
New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice Pick
Previous Publications:
Submarine (2008)
Wild Abandon (2011)
SYNOPSIS
Through his wry and often entertaining exploration, Joe Dunthorne does not shy away from uncovering the darker aspects of his family’s history. While he believed his Jewish family escaped from the Nazis, he finds out instead that his great-grandfather, Siegfried Merzbacher, helped produce the lethal gases that Germany and Turkey used against civilians.
As he investigates the legacy his great-grandfather left behind, Dunthorne travels throughout Europe testing for irradiated soil near his great-grandfather’s former chemical plants. He also visits the towns where his great-grandfather’s activities did the most harm. While seeking to understand whether his great-grandfather was complicit in the chemical warfare that occurred during WW2, Dunthorne also investigates the lingering legacy his great-grandfather left behind.
REVIEWS AND AUTHOR INFORMATION
Brockes, Emma, “A subversive family memoir tinged with tragedy and mustard gas.” The New York Times, April 10, 2025. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/04/books/review/joe-dunthorne-children-of-radium.html
Klein, Julia, “What to do when family history is radioactive? Work around stonewalling relatives“ Los Angeles Times, March 26, 2025. https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2025-03-26/children-radium-book-review-wwii-nazi-germany.
Prose, Francine, “Poisoning the family tree.” The New York Review. April 24, 2025. https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2025/04/24/poisoning-the-family-tree-children-of-radium-dunthorne/
The Book Club, “Joe Dunthorne: Children of Radium.” The Spectator, April 2, 2025. https://www.spectator.co.uk/podcast/joe-dunthorne-children-of-radium/
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Given the archival materials available to him, how well did Dunthorne come to understand the man his great-grandfather once was and the choices he made?
What stories get included and which ones are forgotten within a family’s history?
Can we ever fully know the past?Through their different roles, how do Dunthorne’s female relatives become the heroines of his story including his grandmother, his great-aunt Elisabeth and his mother?
In what ways does Dunthorne take responsibility for the harm his great-grandfather’s work with chemicals caused? To what extent are we responsible for the crimes our ancestors may have committed?
