hollyd19's reviews
269 reviews

Radiant: The Dancer, the Scientist, and a Friendship Forged in Light by Liz Heinecke

adventurous hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad fast-paced

5.0

Liz Heinecke’s dual biography of Marie Curie and Loïe Fuller is an engrossing story of two women at the tops of their fields whose passionate curiosity lead them to a generative, supportive friendship. Written with pace and creativity, I learned about these luminaries and came away with refreshed appreciation for the world’s innovators.

I was familiar with Marie Curie in the way most everyone is: the woman scientist who discovered radium and won the Nobel prize. There are certainly other biographies of her out there — likely more robust and granular — but this rendition followed the complete arc of her life with special emphasis on the intersections with artist Loïe Fuller. Unlike Marie Curie, I was not familiar with Fuller, which is honestly sort of bonkers given my dance background and love of theater. While one of these women achieved lasting notoriety, the other has largely faded from memory despite her intense, lasting impacts on performance arts. She developed extraordinary lighting techniques for the stage where she performed highly creative dances that created mesmerizing illusions. Her interest in light ultimately led her to reach out to Marie Curie who had recently discovered radioactivity and was working to isolate radium — an element that gives off light.

Many parts of their stories are surreal and improbable in the way that some of the best nonfiction is. There is romance and scandal and breakthroughs and war and murder and heartbreak, all on the backdrop of Paris at the turn of the century with a star-studded background cast. Author Liz Heinecke uses creative nonfiction to imbue the stories with dialogue and life all while bringing to the fore two truly extraordinary women. If you were already a casual fan of Marie Curie, this will make you even more impressed. And brace yourself for Loïe Fuller — a woman full of drive and wonder whose historical erasure is a real shame.

All in all, a fantastic read that I’d recommend without reservation!

Content Warnings

The Broadcast 41: Women and the Anti-Communist Blacklist by Carol A. Stabile

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challenging informative sad tense slow-paced

3.0

This book serves as an excellent primer on FBI tactics and attitude in the 1950s. I learned a great deal about Hoover’s approach and the cultivation of a G-Man persona. The Bureau promoted a misogynistic, racist worldview and made use of media channels and friendly journalists to validate their existence. Did you know that the preponderance of police procedurals embedded in our television culture is a direct result of FBI influence?

The American Business Consultants was a private firm founded by former agents that relied on its implied ties to the FBI to stoke fear and legitimize its blacklist, profiting off said concerns and offering to “clear” the accused. Their actions ruined many a career and effectively stopped progressive programming in its tracks (with the ironic exception of children’s shows which they didn’t consider worth the effort).

While that part of the book was fascinating and detailed, I was once again struck by disappointment in that the purported focus of the book — the women — did not make up a majority of the content. The final chapter explores what media could have been like if the inclusive, creative minds that had been blacklisted had a chance to create the programming they’d envisioned. But on the whole, I learned a lot less about these women than about the FBI’s efforts during the Cold War.

Several of the women mentioned were actually part of one of my favorite reads from a few years back: How Women Invented Television by Jennifer Keishin Armstrong. Chronologically, it takes place before the Broadcast 41, but does an excellent job of profiling several prominent women who were shaping the industry ahead of this ideological crackdown. I strongly recommend it.

Astrid and Veronika by Linda Olsson

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emotional reflective slow-paced