Manual for Survival

I’ve previously mentioned the Ezra Klein show, and his delightful habit of asking his interviewees to recommend books they’ve enjoyed. I’m now following that up, and finding it a total treat. I’d never heard of Kate Brown’s “Manual for Survival”, a study of Chernobyl, but I now have it from the library and can hardly put it down.

She’s patient and careful, wary of all kinds of simplification - from politicians, east and west, and any number of self-important blokes with an axe to grind. She goes remorselessly though the paperwork, digging out ancient files which nobody else has looked at, but she’s also keen to talk to the people. That’s the people involved the people who got radiation, not just the people in charge.

Why am I not amazed that many of these are women, whose story has not been told before because it wasn’t deemed important or reliable? As I read, all kinds of rumour and self-justification drop away, leaving a heartbreaking, complex story unfolding, page by page. I don’t know why there hasn’t been more fuss about this book, or why I’d never heard of it before, but I’m so relieved to have caught up with it now.