10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Both an eye opeing, and heart breaking story..., December 11, 2008
This review is from: Welcome to Shirley: A Memoir from an Atomic Town (Hardcover)
I read some of the other reviews, people claiming that the facts in the story about the connection between the Brookhaven Laboratory and Shirley were incorrect, or missrepresented. So, before I bought the book, I paused.
BUT, now having finished the book, I am glad I bought it. I never have lived on Long Island, and I have never been to Shirley, so I can't say that I know that each fact Kelly McMasters presents is correct, but I can say that I enjoyed her argument, and her story.
A lot of literature about the environment, or fighting the government, is dry, and lacking a real human connection. Not this book. I loved that although Kelly offers straight facts about various contaminants, and spills in the areas, she also introduces you to real people. People who you feel a connection to, people you feel real empathy for when they leave the story.
Reading this book will not give you a scientific answer behind the involvement of the Brookhaven Laboratory and Shirley's high rate of cancer. But it will possibly inspire you to do a little research, at least it did for me.
At the end of the day, it peaked my curiosity, and most of all made me interested in the people. She never claimed to have all the answers to a towns problems, simply the platform to tell their story.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great writer/Great read, November 13, 2008
This review is from: Welcome to Shirley: A Memoir from an Atomic Town (Hardcover)
I read this book on a plane to Switzerland. Couldn't put it down. Kelly McMasters is a great writer. I felt sad and outraged that the Brookhaven people wouldn't admit the role the plant played in the obviously strange cancer rates in the area. McMasters does a great job combining factual information with beautiful prose and evocative descriptions of the town and it's people. I learned alot reading this book. About the gross negligence and indifference to human lives that government and corportations are capable of. About how beauty can be found even in the most unlikely places. And mostly about how strongly a person can love where they are from, even when there is seemingly nothing there to love. The reason this book strikes a chord is because it is not just another "big bad corporation vs. the people" story. It is the very human way McMasters describes the people and nature of Shirley that makes the book so much more. She relates how, little by little, as she and the town grow up/older, they both lose their innocence to outside forces. Is it just me, or do some of these other reviewers sound like former Brookhaven employees? Don't let those reviews dissuade you..read this. You'll probably see a little bit of your own hometown in it.
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
More than a memoir, April 26, 2009
A terrific book. Kelly McMasters weaves the personal and political into an insightful and heart-wrenching tapestry. Great research, as well as a poignant portrait of the author's life, and that that of her hard-scrabble, big-hearted town. At moments disturbing and elegiac, at others uplifting, the book is also a call to action. I love the way McMasters takes the traditional memoir form and broadens it into a political essay. Well done.
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