Customer Reviews

Atomic Farmgirl: The Betrayal of Chief Qualchan, the Appaloosa, and Me

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Teri Hein's book about growing up downwind of Hanford is a gem. Clean, honest recollections are buoyed up by elegant research into the area and the families that lived there. The facts are presented and the reader is allowed to draw his/her own conclusion about the impact of radiation exposure from Hanford. A gripping read that everyone in Washington should have in their library.

The debate over the Hanford Nuclear reservation, and its effects on the environmental, medical, and spiritual health of the land and the people of the Pacific Northwest has been raging for years. Teri Hein puts a face, I should say, puts faces to that debate as she weaves a touching true story of growing up on a farm downwind from Hanford, where her family and surrounding families must live with the health effects of the nuclear age. It's a story of the land, the people, and the forces which can bring the ugly and tragic to the serene and beautiful. Don't pass this book up. As funny as it is sad. A quick read, that will not fade quickly.

I got this book because of a great review in Creative Loafing that called it "extraordinary and haunting." I couldn't agree more. It's literary, it's historical, it's funny, it's tragic, it's good. And talk about timely.....in these days of warped homeland security, this book gives a birds eye view of what that is all about. The new foreward for the paperback version is , in two words, very concerning.

By virtue of this book's unusual structure and approach, it probably doesn't fit the political agendas of some people. But this book isn't meant to preach to the choir and it isn't meant as a simplistic rant against the evils of nuclear power, at least as far as I can tell. What it was for me in reading it was a lovely, poetic account of what a neighborhood really is and the sad truth about what can happen to it. Teri Hein made me laugh and cry in the same book. That is a very good writing.

Teri Hein is a wit. Her writing, like her perceptions about life, is sharp, insightful, and full of joy. ATOMIC FARMGIRL is not just a nostalgic look into the lives of people who worked and laughed their way through struggles on a western wheatland. Here is a book about all of us who found our way through adolescence and tried to understand the adults around us. When I was half way through the book I found myself wanting to slow down, not wanting to reach the end this captivating narrative. Hein better be working on her second book because her readers will be wanting more.

Teri took me back to the wonder of early spring greening fields, unmatched in color anywhere in nature, and followed the wheat to harvest. All glorious in my memory, rekindled with her words. She shares her family that watches TV together, a marvelous new pastime back then, then shows us the slow dying of family, neighbors and friends. Luckily Teri chooses not to hammer the indisputable facts of Hanford poisons, but weaves it into this enhanced life story, rather like following the wheat from plowing to harvest. Easy to read and like warm bread with fresh bread to this reader.

I am writing this before I have finished reading Atomic Farmgirl. I am a product of an era just before Teri Hein so some of my memories are slightly different. But, I grew up on a farm in northwest Iowa. Instead of wheat and peas, we grew corn and soy beans. Her descriptions of the very simple events of any given day are so clearly described that they evoke very strong memories for me of my childhood. Learning to drive the tractor during the haying season; helping hold a piece of metal while Dad was welding (though my father insisted we wear the special mask to protect our eyes); the smell of the horse stalls and tack room were most evocative. The lunches in the field, the "party" telephone line; the balky Shetland pony and the wonderful replacement horse... Unless one has experienced these things, it is probably pretty boring, but for one who lived a similar childhood, I am loving it!

The importance of family lineage and the naming of farmsteads by the original owner is so typical of rural America. Even 15 years ago living in a small town in Iowa, our home was known by the name of the owner during the 20's-50's, not as our home. Who your grandparents were was very important, and sometimes created social strains over issues as insignificant as a dead dog incident that happened 50 years before!

The underlying theme of the leakage from the plutonium plant is not within my experience, but is certianly an interesting focus for this story.

So read Atomic Farmgirl and learn about life in rural America during the 50's. It's not that way now, to a great extent, though our son, his wife, and 8 children are still trying to live out that wonderful farming dream.

I have always been intrigued by the eastern side of Washington and its close proximity to Hanford. Shortly after reading the book, I was able to drive through the setting of the book, including the town itself. It was so beautiful with the wheat blowing in the wind. It was difficult to believe the sadness of cancer lurked in the air. A very interesting read.

I have recommended the book to many of my friends in the Columbia Basin.

Atomic Farmgirl is about many things. It is about Hein's family and growing up in the farm lands of eastern Washington. It is about the calamities that have struck this place for over a hundred years. It is about the nuclear industry and the tragedy it has bestowed on our landscape. Teri Hein gracefully avoids a knee jerk political book and challenges us to appreciate this un-simple story. Her book is very very human...and funny and wise and lovely to read. My friend sent it to me. Send a copy to your friend who lives on a farm....or in a city.

I first experienced the Palouse Hills in 1969 when, having just returned form Viet Nam, I was traveling in a 1956 Studebaker pick up with my wife, 11 month old daughter and our mostly Springer Spaniel, "Mut," to my next duty station, Davisville, Rhode Island, the debarkation point for the Antarctic in those days. We drove across the southern edge of the Palouse Hills and, being a farm kid, albeit from another very different agricultural region, I had always wondered what it must be like to live in that unique wheat growing region. After reading Teri Hein's "Atomic Farmgirl" I feel that I have become very familiar with the rhythms of life played out by those Lutheran wheat farmers.

They love God, each other, their way of life and the land. But, they have suffered a plague that may well have been made worse by the deceit of their country. Atomic Farmgirl is a captivating book written is a lovely style that weaves huge threads of the best of life with the few but overwhelming broken and knotted strands of deadly lies that may have taken many of their beloved from them.