Half Life by Jillian Cantor

Half Life by Jillian Cantor – 416 pages 

ARC from Harper Perennial and the author for an honest review

Book Blurb:

In Poland in 1891, Marie Curie (then Marya Sklodowska) was engaged to a budding mathematician, Kazimierz Zorawski. But when his mother insisted she was too poor and not good enough, he broke off the engagement. A heartbroken Marya left Poland for Paris, where she would attend the Sorbonne to study chemistry and physics. Eventually Marie Curie would go on to change the course of science forever and be the first woman to win a Nobel Prize.
But what if she had made a different choice? What if she had stayed in Poland, married Kazimierz at the age of twenty-four, and never attended the Sorbonne or discovered radium? What if she had chosen a life of domesticity with a constant hunger for knowledge in Russian Poland where education for women was restricted, instead of studying science in Paris and meeting Pierre Curie?
Entwining Marie Curie’s real story with Marya Zorawska’s fictional one, Half Life explores loves lost and destinies unfulfilled—and probes issues of loyalty and identity, gender and class, motherhood and sisterhood, fame and anonymity, scholarship and knowledge. Through parallel contrasting versions of Marya’s life, Jillian Cantor’s unique historical novel asks what would have happened if a great scientific mind was denied opportunity and access to education. It examines how the lives of one remarkable woman and the people she loved – as well as the world at large and course of science and history—might have been irrevocably changed in ways both great and small.

My Review: 4 stars

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Half Life blew me away with its stunning reimagining of Marie Curie’s life had she not followed the path she did. Similar to her 2013 novel, Margot, about Anne Frank’s sister, Cantor fictionalizes a different outcome around a notable and memorable character. In Half Life, not only did Cantor create an alternate story around Marie Curie’s life path, but she also maintained a story that resembled her actual life. I can’t imagine the organization and plotting to get all the pieces to this puzzle to fit so accurately.

Honestly, this book not only entertained me, but it definitely taught me a lot about the discovery of polonium and radium; polonium named for Curie’s native Poland and radium for its greater reactivity. The descriptions of the tireless hours in the lab, the smells, the harm inflicted came to life with clarity. 

The book offered a lot to think about in terms of choices. Had we taken this path or that, studied ABC versus XYZ or lived here instead of there all make us who we are today. I found myself reflecting on much of this as I read. 

There hasn’t been a Jillian Cantor book I haven’t enjoyed. This one in particular had a brilliant cover and title that worked so well with the storyline.  You’ll understand after you read the book. I highly suggest you add this to your TBR!