Children of Radium

A gripping journey into the twisting moral maze of the twentieth century – a journey to uncover a radioactive family secret 'The best book I’ve read in the past year . . . A masterpiece' Financial Times Joe Dunthorne never met his great-grandfather Siegfried: an eccentric Jewish scientist who escaped Nazi Berlin in the 1930s and snuck back under cover of night to rescue the family heirlooms. Decades later, Siegfried wrote about his adventures in a memoir so long and rambling that almost no one ever managed to read it. Decades after that , his great-grandson Joe unearthed the dusty manuscript and got a nasty surprise. Because hidden on page 1,692 of the unreadable memoir was a shocking confession . . . ‘A voyage into the heart of twentieth-century darkness [...] narrated with the twists and turns of a detective story’ Observer SHORTLISTED FOR WALES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2026 SHORTLISTED FOR THE TLS ACKERLEY PRIZE 2026

A gripping journey into the twisting moral maze of the twentieth century – a journey to uncover a radioactive family secret 'The best book I’ve read in the past year . . . A masterpiece' Financial Times Joe Dunthorne never met his great-grandfather Siegfried: an eccentric Jewish scientist who escaped Nazi Berlin in the 1930s and snuck back under cover of night to rescue the family heirlooms. Decades later, Siegfried wrote about his adventures in a memoir so long and rambling that almost no one ever managed to read it. Decades after that , his great-grandson Joe unearthed the dusty manuscript and got a nasty surprise. Because hidden on page 1,692 of the unreadable memoir was a shocking confession . . . ‘A voyage into the heart of twentieth-century darkness [...] narrated with the twists and turns of a detective story’ Observer SHORTLISTED FOR WALES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2026 SHORTLISTED FOR THE TLS ACKERLEY PRIZE 2026

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. SHORTLISTED FOR WALES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2026

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. SHORTLISTED FOR WALES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2026

In the tradition of When Time Stopped and The Hare with Amber Eyes , this subversive family memoir investigates the dark legacy of the author's great-grandfather, a talented German-Jewish chemist who wound up developing chemical weapons and gas mask filters for the Nazis. When Joe Dunthorne began researching his family history, he expected to write the account of their harrowing escape from Nazi Germany in 1935. What he found in his great-grandfather Siegfried's voluminous, unpublished, partially translated memoir was a much darker, more complicated story. Siegfried was an eccentric Jewish scientist living in a small town north of Berlin, where he began by developing a radioactive toothpaste before moving on to products with a more sinister military connection--first he made and tested gas-mask filters, and then he was invited to establish a chemical weapons laboratory. By 1933, he was the laboratory's director, helping the Nazis to "improve" their poisons and prepare for large-scale production. "I confess to my descendants who will read these lines that I made a grave error," he wrote. "I cannot shake off the great debt on my conscience." Armed only with his great-grandfather's rambling, nearly two-thousand-page deathbed memoir and a handful of archival clues, Dunthorne traveled to Munich, Ammendorf, Berlin, Ankara, and Oranienburg--a place where hundreds of unexploded bombs remain hidden in the irradiated soil--to uncover the sprawling, unsettling legacy of Siegfried's work. Seeking to understand one "jolly grandpa" with a patchy psychiatric history, Dunthorne confronts the uncomfortable questions that lie at the heart of every family: Can we ever understand our origins? Is every family story a work of fiction? And if the truth can be found, will we be able to live with it? Children of Radium is a witty and wry, deeply humane and endlessly surprising meditation on individual and collective inheritance that considers the long half-life of trauma, the weight of guilt, and the ever-evasive nature of the truth.

In the tradition of When Time Stopped and The Hare with Amber Eyes , this subversive family memoir investigates the dark legacy of the author's great-grandfather, a talented German-Jewish chemist who wound up developing chemical weapons and gas mask filters for the Nazis. When Joe Dunthorne began researching his family history, he expected to write the account of their harrowing escape from Nazi Germany in 1935. What he found in his great-grandfather Siegfried's voluminous, unpublished, partially translated memoir was a much darker, more complicated story. Siegfried was an eccentric Jewish scientist living in a small town north of Berlin, where he began by developing a radioactive toothpaste before moving on to products with a more sinister military connection--first he made and tested gas-mask filters, and then he was invited to establish a chemical weapons laboratory. By 1933, he was the laboratory's director, helping the Nazis to "improve" their poisons and prepare for large-scale production. "I confess to my descendants who will read these lines that I made a grave error," he wrote. "I cannot shake off the great debt on my conscience." Armed only with his great-grandfather's rambling, nearly two-thousand-page deathbed memoir and a handful of archival clues, Dunthorne traveled to Munich, Ammendorf, Berlin, Ankara, and Oranienburg--a place where hundreds of unexploded bombs remain hidden in the irradiated soil--to uncover the sprawling, unsettling legacy of Siegfried's work. Seeking to understand one "jolly grandpa" with a patchy psychiatric history, Dunthorne confronts the uncomfortable questions that lie at the heart of every family: Can we ever understand our origins? Is every family story a work of fiction? And if the truth can be found, will we be able to live with it? Children of Radium is a witty and wry, deeply humane and endlessly surprising meditation on individual and collective inheritance that considers the long half-life of trauma, the weight of guilt, and the ever-evasive nature of the truth.