{"product_id":"full-body-burden-isbn-9780307955654","title":"Full Body Burden","description":"\u003cb\u003e“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 \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e bestselling author of \u003ci\u003eThe Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eA “powerful” (\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e) 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\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWINNER OF THE COLORADO BOOK AWARD AND THE READING THE WEST BOOK AWARD \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKristen 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.” \u003ci\u003eFull Body Burden\u003c\/i\u003e 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.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBased on extensive interviews, FBI and EPA documents, and class-action testimony, this taut, beautifully written book is both captivating and unnerving.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eA \u003ci\u003eKIRKUS REVIEWS \u003c\/i\u003eAND \u003ci\u003eMOTHER JONES \u003c\/i\u003eBEST BOOK OF THE YEAR\u003c\/b\u003e“Intimate . . . powerful . . . a potent examination of the dangers of secrecy.”\u003cb\u003e—Dwight Garner, \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A beautiful memoir that recognizes the inevitable intrusion of greater social forces in all of our lives and the risk we take in ignoring them.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eDenver Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[\u003ci\u003eFull Body Burden\u003c\/i\u003e] is impressively researched, but it’s also impressively readable. . . . An important contribution to both nuclear literature and memoir.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eOrion\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A deft rebellion against the silences, public and intimate, that have proven disastrous for [Iversen’s] community.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eMother Jones\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A striking tale of innocence in a time and a place of great danger.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe Atlantic\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A shocking and salutary coming-of-age memoir . . . A meticulously researched and compelling narrative of growing up in the ‘sacrifice’ zone of America’s nuclear weapons programme . . . One of those rare, life-changing works whose quiet, insistent moral authority commands us to read on and to remember.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eTelegraph\u003c\/i\u003e (UK) \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“An intriguing mix of memoir and first-class investigative journalism . . . \u003ci\u003eMad Men\u003c\/i\u003e meets \u003ci\u003eErin Brockovich\u003c\/i\u003e.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eIndependent\u003c\/i\u003e (UK) \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A carefully pruned memoir . . . [Iversen’s] greatest feat, beyond her clear exposition of decades of scientific mismanagement, is to explain our capacity to ignore what seems too deeply embedded to fix.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003ePortland Mercury\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[Iversen’s] book is simultaneously a careful memoir of a haunted childhood and a ferocious interrogation of deliberate environmental and public health neglect, and its slow revelation of family and government secrets has the hypnotic force of a horror story.”\u003cb\u003e—Maryn McKenna, \u003ci\u003eWired\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Intimate . . . [Iversen’s] blending of fact-based reporting with such narrative warmth is no small achievement.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eSalon\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Iversen seems to have been destined to write this shocking and infuriating story of a glorious land and a trusting citizenry poisoned by Cold War militarism and ‘hot’ contamination, secrets and lies, greed and denial. . . . News stories come and go. It takes a book of this exceptional caliber to focus our attention and marshal our collective commitment to preventing future nuclear horrors.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003c\/i\u003e (starred review)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“With meticulous reporting and a clear eye for details, Iversen has crafted a chilling, brilliantly written cautionary tale about the dangers of blind trust. . . . \u003ci\u003eFull Body Burden\u003c\/i\u003e is both an engrossing memoir and a powerful piece of investigative journalism.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eBookPage\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“What makes this book so powerful is not only this persistent revealing of the truth, but also Iversen’s ability to shift gears from the journalistic and factual to the aesthetic and metaphorical.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eBrevity\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Poignant and gracefully written, Iversen shows us what it meant to come of age next door to Rocky Flats—America’s plutonium bomb factory. The story is at once terrifying and outrageous.”\u003cb\u003e—Kai Bird, coauthor of the Pulitzer Prize–winning \u003ci\u003eAmerican Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A powerful and beautiful account, of great use to all of us who will fight the battles that lie ahead.”\u003cb\u003e—Bill McKibben, author of \u003ci\u003eThe End of Nature\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eEaarth\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eKristen Iversen\u003c\/b\u003e grew up in Arvada, Colorado, near the Rocky Flats nuclear weaponry facility and received a Ph.D. in English from the University of Denver. She is head of the PhD program in Literary Nonfiction at the University of Cincinnati. During the summers, she serves on the faculty of the MFA Low-Residency Program at the University of New Orleans, held in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, and in Edinburgh, Scotland. She is also the author of \u003ci\u003eMolly Brown: Unraveling the Myth,\u003c\/i\u003e winner of the Colorado Book Award for Biography and the Barbara Sudler Award for Nonfiction. Iversen has two sons and lives in Cincinnati. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003e1\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eMother’s Day\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e1963\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt’s 1963 and I’m five. I lie across the backseat of the family car, sleeping with my cheek pressed against the vinyl. My mother sits in the front with baby Karin and my father drives, carefully holding his cigarette just at the window’s edge. This is how I remember my mother and father: smoking in a cool, elegant way that makes me want to grow up quick so I can smoke, too. It’s evening and I’m tired and cranky. The spring day has been spent on a long drive through the Colorado mountains, a Sunday ritual.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe turn the corner to our home on Johnson Court, the square little house my parents bought when my father left his job as an attorney for an insurance company and set up his own law practice. The neighborhood is made up of winding rows of houses that all look like ours: a front door and a picture window facing the street, two windows on each side, and a sliding door in the back that opens to a postage-stamp backyard. We have a view of the mountains and one tree.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Uh-oh,” my mother says.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Jesus.” My dad stops the car. I scramble to my knees to look.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOur house is smoldering. One side is gone. A fire truck and a police car with streaking red lights stand in the driveway.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy dad jumps out and my mom reaches over and pulls up the parking brake. “Dick,” she says, “I’m taking Kris to the neighbor’s.” My mother is always good in a crisis.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMrs. Hauschild is waiting at her door. She takes a pair of pajamas from her daughter’s room—we’re almost the same age—and she beds me down in the basement in a sleeping bag. “She’ll be fine here,” Mrs. Hauschild says. “She doesn’t need to see all that commotion.” She suggests they both have a drink and a cigarette. My mother nods.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Someone must have left the lamp on in Kris’s bedroom,” my mother says as they walk up the stairs. “The drapes caught on fire.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI repeat these words in my head until I come to believe I set the fire myself. I can still picture my bedside lamp, the brass switch, the round orange globe always warm to the touch.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYears later—decades, in fact—my father laughs when I tell him this story. “You didn’t cause that fire, Kris,” he says. “Your mother and I did. We had been sitting and talking in the living room, having a drink together, and we left a burning cigarette in the ashtray. Neither of us noticed. The drapes in the living room caught fire first.” The flames never reached my room.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis is how I want to remember my parents: still talking to each other, even when the world was tumbling down around their ears.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e•\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe rent a basement apartment for a month and then move back to our rebuilt house. Nothing is ever said about the fire. Nothing is ever said about dark or sad or upsetting events, and anything that involves liquor is definitely not discussed. My parents are elegant drinkers. My mother can make a Manhattan with just the right splash of whiskey and vermouth. My father takes his bourbon straight on ice. After dinner, once my mother has tucked us into bed, my parents make cocktails and play cribbage to determine who has to do the dishes. From my bedroom I can hear my mother’s soft laugh. Sometimes there’s a stack of unwashed plates in the sink when we leave for school in the morning.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSoon another baby is born: my sister Karma. This is not a hippie name, despite the fact that we live close to Boulder. My mother insists on naming her daughters after her Norwegian heritage: Kristen, Karin, Karma.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt the top of the hill behind our house stands the Arvada cemetery. The year 1863 is etched in a stone marker at the entrance. The cemetery works like a magnet. As soon as our mother puts us out into the yard for the afternoon—just like the kids and grandkids on the family farm back in Iowa, who were expected to fend for themselves for the day—Karin and I scramble over the fence and head for the hill. We are our own secret club, and Karma joins us as soon as she is old enough to toddle along. Sometimes the other neighbor girls—Paula, Susie, and Kathy—are allowed into the club as temporary members. We trek across the field behind the row of backyards and through the old apple orchard and get up to the creek, where we balance a flat plank across the shallow, sluggish water and tiptoe across. Water spiders dance across the surface and tiny minnows scatter when we push our toes into the muddy bottom.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt the crest of the hill stand row after row of headstones. Some are tall, others flat against the ground. Some have the names of children or images of their faces etched in the stone, and we stay away from those. We run up and down the rows, shrieking and gathering up the plastic flowers. We pile all our flowers in the middle and sit in a circle around them. We look down the hill to our house and imagine our mother, big and round, lying on her bed and waiting for the next baby, a boy at last, she’s sure of it. A little farther, we can see the Arvada Villa Pizza Parlor and the Arvada Beauty Academy. Between our neighborhood and the long dark line of mountains stands a single white water tower, all by itself. The Rocky Flats water tower. There is a hidden factory there.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThat hidden factory is the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant, a foundry that smelts plutonium, purifies it, and shapes it into plutonium “triggers” for nuclear bombs. The plant also recycles fissionable material from outmoded bombs. A largely blue-collar link in the U.S. government’s nuclear bomb network, Rocky Flats is the only plant in the country that produces these triggers--small, spherical explosives that provide an atomic bomb’s chain reaction. The triggers form the heart of every nuclear weapon made in America. From 1952 to 1989, Rocky Flats manufactures more than seventy thousand plutonium triggers, at a cost of nearly $4 million apiece. Each one contains enough breathable particles of plutonium to kill every person on earth.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRocky Flats’ largest output, however, is radioactive and toxic waste. In all the decades of nuclear weapons production, the nuclear weapons industry produces waste with too little thought to the future or the environment. The creation of each gram of plutonium produces radioactive waste, virtually all of which remains with us to the present day.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut no one in our community knows what goes on at Rocky Flats. This is a secret operation, not subject to any laws of the state.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe wind blows, as it always does. I imagine the bones of pioneers and cowboys beneath our feet. The chill of evening begins to creep up the hill; the air turns cold when the sun dips.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Let’s go!” Karin yells, and we jump to our feet and roll and tumble down the hill. We bounce across the plank and race across the field, full speed, before the sun sets and the ghosts come out.","brand":"Crown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46302213112037,"sku":"NP9780307955654","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780307955654.jpg?v=1767727778","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/full-body-burden-isbn-9780307955654","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}