Full Body Burden
Growing Up in the Nuclear Shadow of Rocky Flats
Crown · Print & ebook · June 4, 2013
“An intimate and deeply human memoir that shows why we should all be concerned about nuclear safety, and the dangers of ignoring science in the name of national security.”—Rebecca Skloot, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks A “powerful” (The New York Times) account of the government’s attempt to conceal the effects of the toxic waste released by a secret nuclear weapons plant in Colorado and a community’s vain search for justice—soon to be a feature documentary WINNER OF THE COLORADO BOOK AWARD AND THE READING THE WEST BOOK AWARD Kristen Iversen grew up in a small Colorado town close to Rocky Flats, a secret nuclear weapons plant once designated “the most contaminated site in America.” Full Body Burden is the story of a childhood and adolescence in the shadow of the Cold War, in a landscape at once startlingly beautiful and—unknown to those who lived there—tainted with invisible yet deadly particles of plutonium.
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- Who it’s for
- Personal history, political memory, and the uneasy background radiation of an American century.
- Genres
- Personal Memoirs, Nuclear Warfare, Environmental Science
- Published
- Crown, June 4, 2013
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“An intimate and deeply human memoir that shows why we should all be concerned about nuclear safety, and the dangers of ignoring science in the name of national security.”—Rebecca Skloot, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks A “powerful” (The New York Times) account of the government’s attempt to conceal the effects of the toxic waste released by a secret nuclear weapons plant in Colorado and a community’s vain search for justice—soon to be a feature documentary WINNER OF THE COLORADO BOOK AWARD AND THE READING THE WEST BOOK AWARD Kristen Iversen grew up in a small Colorado town close to Rocky Flats, a secret nuclear weapons plant once designated “the most contaminated site in America.”
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Full Body Burden is the story of a childhood and adolescence in the shadow of the Cold War, in a landscape at once startlingly beautiful and—unknown to those who lived there—tainted with invisible yet deadly particles of plutonium. It’s also a book about the destructive power of secrets—both family and government. Her father’s hidden liquor bottles, the strange cancers in children in the neighborhood, the truth about what was made at Rocky Flats—best not to inquire too deeply into any of it. But as Iversen grew older, she began to ask questions and discovered some disturbing realities. Based on extensive interviews, FBI and EPA documents, and class-action testimony, this taut, beautifully written book is both captivating and unnerving. A KIRKUS REVIEWS AND MOTHER JONES BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
Nuclear Shadow
Personal history, political memory, and the uneasy background radiation of an American century.
Come here for
- inside a nuclear-era American landscape
- clear-eyed, personal history with stakes
Expect
- accessible but serious
- an intimate, unsparing register
Where it sits
| Personal Memoirs | 83% |
|---|---|
| Environmental Science | 49% |
| Nuclear Warfare | 33% |
Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.
Publisher categories
- Activist Lives
- 20th-Century History
- Disease & Public Health
- Authors
- Kristen Iversen
- Publisher
- Crown
- Published
- June 4, 2013
- Format
- Print & ebook
- Reading lane
- Activist Lives