Loneliness, Longing, and Other Poisons: Review of Sofi Papamarko’s Radium Girl
Sofi Papamarko, Radium Girl.
Wolsak & Wynn, 2021. $20 CAD.
Buy a copy from Wolsak & Wynn.
From a funeral home to “fat camp” to a factory that slowly kills the unsuspecting women who work there, Sofi Papamarko’s debut collection of short stories takes readers on a journey to dark and unexpected places. Radium Girl is filled with predators and misfits — and at its heart, is about women making bold choices to define what they are, what they want, and what they can become.
The collection opens with “Margie & Lu,” a story narrated first by Margie and then by Lu. The two are a pair of conjoined twins, but despite sharing a body, are very different. Margie is beautiful and charming while Lu is quiet and slightly misshapen. A reporter from the local paper writes about Lu: “Looking at her is like looking at the lovely Margie’s reflection in a funhouse mirror” (4), showing us not only the difference in their physical appearance but also the difference in the way people perceive and openly discuss them. This jarring disconnect between two people — two faces, two minds, and two personalities — sharing one body ultimately creates a rift between the sisters that they can neither repair nor escape, a reflection from which they can never turn away. The motif of a funhouse mirror becomes an apt lens for the rest of the collection — characters who are not what they seem to be, distorted relationships, going through a place where things are not quite right, and ending the book feeling amused and unsettled alike.
A common theme throughout the stories in the collection is women behaving in morally ambiguous ways. In “Controlled Burn,” an overweight teenager has her heart broken by a predatory magician and overcomes her fear of fire to get revenge, or justice, or both. In “White Cake,” an office worker finds joy in baking and in a new friendship, but when her friend turns out to be not so friendly, she decides to take matters into her own hands — with deadly consequences for everyone who’s let her down. In “Tiny Girls,” a pedophile’s mother tries to protect her son, even from beyond the grave: “On the back of the printout, a yellow Post-it Note with a spurt of mother’s handwriting: ‘Try not to be what you are,’ it reads” (78). This same sentiment echoes from story to story, as we see characters pushing against the boundaries of their lives and their bodies, pushing to be loved, to be seen, or at least, to be different than what they are. These stories don’t provide any easy answers or clear ideas about who is right and wrong. What they do provide is nuanced explorations of the complex dynamics of desire, friendship, and family, and the many different currencies women pay to navigate them.
Papamarko is known for her former role as a professional matchmaker in Toronto, and she has written extensively about dating and relationships. One of the standout pieces in this collection is “Everyone You Love is Dead,” which may draw from some of that experience. The story follows Rosie, a matchmaker who cruises funerals to seek out fresh widower bait for her wealthy older women clients. Papamarko infuses the story with a distinctive and darkly funny voice, and uses no-frills language to deliver sharp commentary on the way society views women after a certain age. From Rosie, we are told, “… after age fifty-five or so, with very few exceptions, women become invisible. The men start dropping dead but it’s the women who actually disappear” (44-45). Like many of Radium Girl’s characters, Rosie’s methods may be risky, but Papamarko’s skill as a storyteller leaves us rooting for them anyway.
The final story in the collection is the titular “Radium Girl,” which is based on the true story of the female factory workers who contracted radiation poisoning from painting watch dials with “Undark,” a luminous paint made from water, glue, and radium. The horror of this story builds slowly, starting with the “radium girls” painting the skin, fingernails, and teeth of a bride-to-be with Undark. We know they have condemned her to death — or at least a quicker death than the rest of them — even as they cry delightedly, “Oh! Wouldn’t it be funny though?” (159) and then, “Imogen looked like a fairy queen. She looked like an angel” (160), effectively foreshadowing her demise. One by one, the girls begin to fall ill, but one among them finds she is unaffected by the radium they have all been ingesting, having been instructed to “point” their brushes with their lips. Instead of weakening her, the poison makes her strong. While the others fade, she glows brighter than ever.
In the end, isn’t that what we all want — to be immune to the injustices of the world? “Radium Girl” closes the book with a bittersweet combination of sadness and magic, leaving readers with the faintly glimmering hope that even in our darkest moments, there is always some part of us that will continue to shine.
Anuja Varghese (www.anujavarghese.com) is a Pushcart-nominated writer based in Hamilton, ON. Her work appears in Hobart, The Malahat Review, Hamilton Review of Books, Plenitude Magazine, and others. She recently completed a collection of short stories and is at work on a debut novel.