Luminous Bodies: A Novel of Marie Curie

TK-page paperback / 5.5" x 8.5" / ISBN 9781589882102Publication Date: 2/17/2026 (available for preorder) The name Marie Curie conjures up X-ray cars and electrometers, black-and-white photos of a researcher in a lab (often beside her husband, Pierre Curie), and the Nobel Prizes. But what about the woman, the daughter, wife, mother, friend, and lover? Based on the author's careful research, Luminous Bodies inhabits the tumultuous emotional life of this enigmatic and fascinating woman. In the vein of Dawn Tripp’s Georgia: A Novel of Georgia O’Keefe and Lauren Groff’s Matrix, Devon Jersild’s psychologically rich narrative follows Marie from her girlhood in Poland to her dangerous work on the battlefields of World War I, focusing particularly on the period from 1894 to 1912: her marriage, widowhood, and passionate love affair with fellow scientist Paul Langevin, after which she was brutally ostracized from both society and the scientific community. It conveys the excitement of Curie's scie