Full Body Burden

Reviews

“Intimate . . . Powerful . . . A potent examination of the dangers of secrecy . . . A serious and alarming book [that] has its share of charming moments.”—Dwight Garner, The New York Times

“Iversen’s reporting, extensive interviews, and review of FBI and EPA documents, shows how classifying a toxic nuclear site led to the ruin of hundreds of lives--and continues to pose ever-escalating threats as the legacy of what we know about such nuclear contamination is being swept under the rug by developers, energy lobbyists and government agencies colluding with them, at the risk of exposing more of us, more severely.”—Naomi Wolf, Guardian (UK)

“Iversen has left us a beautiful memoir that recognizes the inevitable intrusion of greater social forces in all our lives and the risk we take in ignoring them.”—Denver Post

“Iversen’s carefully pruned memoir layers the story of the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant in Colorado, a cold-war darling that made plutonium triggers, over her life in its ‘nuclear shadow.’ Her 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.”—Portland Mercury

“Gripping . . . exquisitely researched . . . A superbly crafted tale of Cold War America’s dark underside.”—Kirkus Reviews, starred review

“In this powerful work of research and personal testimony, Iversen chronicles the story of America’s willfully blinkered relationship to the nuclear weapons industry through the haunting experience of her own family in Colorado.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review

“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.”—Booklist, starred review

“Full Body Burden is both an engrossing memoir and a powerful piece of investigative journalism.”—BookPage

“Full Body Burden is one of the most important stories of the nuclear era—It’s an essential and unforgettable book that should be talked about in schools and book clubs, online and in the White House.”—Rebecca Skloot, author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

“This terrifyingly brilliant book—as perfectly crafted and meticulously assembled as the nuclear bomb triggers that lie at its core—is a savage indictment of the American strategic weapons industry, both haunting in its power, and yet wonderfully, charmingly human as a memoir of growing up in the Atomic Age.”—Simon Winchester, author of The Professor and the Madman and Atlantic

“Full Body Burden has all the elements of a classic horror tale: the charming nuclear family cruising innocently above the undercurrents of nuclear nightmare. But it's true and all the more chilling.”—Bobbie Ann Mason, author of Shiloh and Other Stories and In Country

“This is a powerful and beautiful account, of great use to all of us who will fight the battles that lie ahead.”—Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature and Earth

“Kristen Iversen’s prose is clean and clear and lovely, and her story is deeply involving and full of insight and knowledge; it begins in innocence, and moves through catastrophes; it is unflinching and brave, an expose about ignorance and denial and the cost of government excess.”—Richard Bausch, author of Peace and Something Is Out There Expand reviews