Literally, the work was light as the main job the young ladies were given was to apply glowing paint to the faces of clocks .

In the 1920s when radium paint was introduced into the manufacture of clock dials in a New Jersey factory, the dangers of the newly developed material were still to be discovered.

The acclaimed work by Melanie Marnich follows the “Radium Girls” of the Radium Dial Company, who painted the faces of luminous watches and clocks with radioactive paint. Though protagonist Catherine ...