Happy New Year! To start 2020, I’m reviewing a non-fiction title on one of the defining moments of the 20th century: the explosion of Reactor 4 in the V.I Lenin Nuclear Power Plant, colloquially known as Chernobyl. Even if you have little interest in non-fiction books, Midnight in Chernobyl reads like fiction. Higginbotham has a brilliant style that, while technical, flows easily. Midnight in Chernobyl will horrify you. If you’re a fan of the HBO miniseries of Chernobyl, you will be both pleasantly surprised and horrified by what is fiction and factual within the show as Midnight in Chernobyl was part of the source material.
As the events of Chernobyl are, to one degree or another, historical fact I’m not going to issue a spoiler warning for the content below. No summary will ruin Midnight in Chernobyl for you.
“[T]he atomic chieftains of NIKIET and the Kurchatov Institute apparently believed that a well-written set of manuals would be enough to guarantee nuclear safety”
DANGER & DELIGHT: NUCLEAR POWER
Higginbotham is not anti-nuclear power. Midnight in Chernobyl is not a book meant to downplay the importance of nuclear power plants. He takes his time to explain how the RBMK-1000 reactors work, the dangers of alpha, beta, and gamma radiation, as well as how much radiation is given off by each and every one of us (surprise, you give off radiation). He lays a careful foundation for the reader so that you can be appropriately shocked and appalled at the reaction of those involved. But Higginbotham lays out the almost rational reasons behind the oft-ineffective methods used to try and put out the reactor fire. The secrecy of the USSR is a poignant warning against nepotism and blind belief in any system—regardless of whether that system is science, religion, or any other potentially zealous belief system. The failure of the RMBK-1000 reactor did not start with a faulty design, but instead was the culmination of a dangerous yes-man culture that placed devotion to the Party above reason.
Midnight in Chernobyl is an important warning, but it showcases the impressive stamina of human spirit that tragedies bring out. It shows the human side, the weakness and the strength of names that have become synonymous with the tragedy thanks to the HBO Chernobyl. Brukhanov, Fomin, Dyatlov, Legasov—all of these men have greater strengths and weaknesses than a short mini-series could show, and Midnight in Chernobyl does greater justice to the men behind the dramatization. In particular, I found Dyatlov a far more sympathetic person than I thought I would.
“Legasov didn’t want to listen. He insisted that they had to take immediate action—whether it was effective or not. “People won’t understand if we do nothing,” Legasov said. “We have to be seen to be doing something.””
4/5 stars
-L.J.
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