Customer Reviews

Welcome to Shirley: A Memoir from an Atomic Town

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

My family has owned a house in Mastic Beach since the late 70's, primarily as a vacation home. I remember all the summers spent out there, it had so much promise, but it never materialized. Reading the book brought back many of the good memories as well as the bad, I could close my eyes and see Handy Pantry again and taste Onofrio's pizza. Not being able to drink the water, don't stay in the shower too long, etc, etc. My sister who spent the most time out at the house recently passed away from breast cancer, no family history, my aunt who had a house up the block passed away with breast cancer, uncle who also had a house up the block passed away from cancer.....needless to say, everyone knew that there was a problem, but the big machine can't be questioned. I will never go out to the house again and will never take my kids there.
I sent a copy of the book to my remaining 3 sisters and 1 brother hoping that they will never go to the house again.
I don't really care whether or not the basic history facts may or may not be 100% accurate. The fact remains that BNL polluted the area with toxic waste and nobody did anything about it.

I just finished reading this book and it is an easy read. I usually get bored mid-way through a book. This book kept be interested with the mix of her personal stories and factual information about the radioactive pollution that is affecting people in the Suffolk County area. The lab sits on top of the sole aquifer in the area and is pumped into the homes of families within about a twenty mile radius.
I am particularly interested because I live in Shirley's sister town, Mastic Beach. My mother in-law lived there for 20+ years, has no history of breast cancer in her family, never smoked, never abused alcohol and has been in and out of remission from breast cancer. Her oncologist said she is a 'rare' case because she never abused these things and it does not run in her large family. But it does not seem that they took into consideration where she was living.
I remember watching the Montel Williams show when they did a piece with Alec Baldwin in the late 90's about the 13 rare childhood cancers in Suffolk county. They were 1 in a million (or higher) cancers and when you viewed the map you could see where the children lived created a circle around Brookhaven Lab. McMasters speaks of a child in the book that has a one in 4 million case of cancer and how her father finds out there are 28 other cases of it in Suffolk County.
McMasters speaks of the danger this radioactive water poses in everyday life. Shocking revelation after shocking revelation are revealed: it's not just about drinking the water; hand-washing clothes (for instance)the agitation of the clothes in the water releases the water into the air for the person to inhale and absorb the isotopes into the lungs and bloodstream. This also occurs when we shower and the vaporized steam is inhaled and also absorbed through the skin upon contact. The water we use everyday in innumerable ways is the enemy and we can't get away from it unless we get away from the area.
As she grows up cancer seems to envelope the people in her area. She reports of numerous young adults having benign tumors and then going back to the doctors, those same adults now have developed cancer.
Everyone needs to read this book. You never know what is lurking in your backyard and how it is affecting you.

My sister recently came for a visit a brought me this book. McMasters accurately describes my childhood to a T (and I started living in Shirley 10 years earlier). I enjoyed the book until it got to all Brookhaven Lab pollution. I agree with an earlier reveiw that the it reads like 2 books. I do hope that someday Shirley can be saved..........it was a great place to grow up, but I wouldn't want to live there.

As someone who is a recognized historian and former resident of the Shirley area, I was truly looking forward to the arrival of this book. Ms. McMasters contacted me several years ago for both information and potential people to interview for it.

After reading it, I have to say about the only thing I can agree with is that what happened to the Shirley area is indeed a sad tale. But I am also saddened that Ms. McMasters, who is a talented writer, would use her talent to distort history to support a thesis. There are just TOO MANY factual errors and half truths here about the basic history of the town to be dismissed as just sloppy work. Because of that I can only say that her far bigger picture of the enviormental dangers both real and imaginary of having a nuclear facility looming in Shirley's back yard is greatly diminished. If you are interested in an in depth review with many of the books errors pointed out in detail just go to The Knapps Lived Here website and look on the left side of the main page in the green area

Thanks Kelly for perfectly capturing the spirit of our shared hometown. I often find it hard to explain why I am simultaneously compelled to defend and run away from Shirley. I lived in Shirley from 1971 until 1986, had "city water" and know several of the people and families included in your story. My mom just finally sold our house in 2006. The lab has always been a clandestine "something's not right" zone and I found your account of all the bits and pieces simultaneously shocking and unsurprising. I guess Shirley is just a town of juxtaposing emotions.

Told in the form of a personal narrative, this book contains a lot of interesting information about Long Island local history, especially the East End. There's also a lot of interesting information about nuclear pollution, which might make anyone question the water they drink. Unfortunately, much of this book also reads as an indictment of Brookhaven National Laboratory, which may or may not be justified. To be fair, McMasters credits BNL for having improved their practices in recent years, but the book still comes across as being agenda-driven and biased, which undercuts the message more than a little bit.

As someone who has been following the environmental cleanup at Brookhaven Lab for the past 15 years, I was very disappointed by this "memoir." McMasters' childhood memories and fears are vividly portrayed, but her claims of extensive research are contradicted by a plethora of factual errors, especially when she is writing about the lab.

McMasters also conveniently neglects to mention independent scientific studies that offer solid evidence contrary to her primary claim - that cancer clusters surround Brookhaven Lab. Instead, she uses supposition, partial truths, and innuendo to support her apparently predetermined conclusions. I guess this makes for a more tantalizing read (and may result in better book sales), but it certainly does not result in an accurate accounting.

The author doesn't even correctly name the "primary funding agency" for the lab (the Department of Energy, not the Department of Defense, information readily available on their web site). How can the reader trust her more extraordinary claims - like a connection between Brookhaven Lab, UFOs and the TWA Flight 800 disaster? Or her reporting as fact that a terrible childhood cancer can "only" be caused by radiation when, in reality, a simple Google search reveals web sites like the American Cancer Society's, which cites five inherited medical conditions as risk factors, but not radiation? In fact, the ACS website says that there "are no environmental factors (such as exposures during the mother's pregnancy or in early childhood)" that are known to increase the chance of getting this cancer.

There are many similar misstatements throughout McMasters' book that she could have easily checked and corrected. This is surprising, especially in light of well-publicized factual problems with several recent titles in the memoir genre.

Newsday did a yearlong investigation of Brookhaven Lab in 1998. The multi-part series concluded that there was no public health crisis associated with the lab and dispelled many of the same claims McMasters makes. If her book were just a collection of memories, her conclusions might be understandable. McMasters, however, tells the reader that "Welcome to Shirley" is based on facts and extensive research and then cherry-picks information that fits her story.

Brookhaven Lab has certainly had some significant environmental troubles, and no one questions that Shirley has been impacted by the negative publicity. If the book had taken a more complete, honest look at the lab's relationship with Shirley and the surrounding community and how it has changed over the years, the book could have been an interesting read that brought people together. Instead, it's likely to scare Shirley residents and perpetuate the worst stereotypes about science, health, and government.

McMasters could have helped build her town up; instead, she tears it down. Is she using Shirley for her own gain? It sure looks that way.