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Into the Forbidden Zone: A Trip Through Hell and High Water in Post-Earthquake Japan (Kindle Single) by [William T. Vollmann]

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William T. Vollmann

Into the Forbidden Zone: A Trip Through Hell and High Water in Post-Earthquake Japan (Kindle Single) Kindle Edition

by William T. Vollmann (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

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Kindle, May 1, 2011

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Just weeks after multiple disasters struck Japan, National Book Award winner William T. Vollmann ventures into the nuclear hot zone, outfitted only with rubber kitchen gloves, a cloth facemask, and a capricious radiation detector. He emerges with a haunting report on daily life in a now-ravaged Japan -- a country he has known and loved for many years. And in the cities and towns hit hardest by the earthquake, tsunami, and radioactive contamination, Vollmann finds troubling omens of a future heading toward us all.

Print length

61 pages
Language

English
Publication date

May 1, 2011
File size

1757 KB
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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Do you think that nuclear power is wise or unwise? When you think about radiation, what comes to mind? How relevant is the nuclear accident to you? So, you approve of nuclear power? These are not questions asked around a water cooler in Anywhere, USA, a safe distance from the eastern coast of Japan, which is experiencing a nuclear disaster of Chernobyl-like proportions. These are questions William T. Vollmann asked a handful of people who were there--who were rocked by the 9-magnitude earthquake on March 11, 2011; who managed to survive the tsunami that followed; and who are now dealing with what is probably the most fearsome element in this trifecta of catastrophes--the unknown. Armed with a dosimeter and an anti-nuclear agenda, Vollmann boldly goes where even the most hungry and seasoned journalist would fear to tread, “the forbidden zone.” The answers Vollmann gets may surprise you. Even more surprising, perhaps, is the kindness and enduring spirit of the people he encounters--people still abiding what had seemed like a remote horror that now, yet again, is all too real. --Erin Kodicek

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B004YXB5RG
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Byliner; 1st edition (May 1, 2011)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ May 1, 2011
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 1757 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Print length ‏ : ‎ 61 pages
Lending ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled

Customer Reviews:
21 ratings

About the author

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William T. Vollmann

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William Tanner Vollmann (born July 28, 1959) is an American novelist, journalist, war correspondent, short story writer, and essayist. He won the 2005 National Book Award for Fiction for the novel Europe Central. He lives in Sacramento, California, with his wife and daughter.

Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Photo by Øystein Vidnes (http://www.flickr.com/photos/oysteinv/160077312/) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

Customer reviews

5 star		30%
4 star		15%
3 star		29%
2 star		19%
1 star		8%

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Top reviews from the United States

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Mothram

BRAVE AND REVEALING

Reviewed in the United States on May 8, 2013

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This is a first-hand account by a the journalist William T. Vollmann about his trip to Fukushima, Japan shortly after the devastating earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011. Approximately 12K people were killed, 15K injured and and 3K missing. In addition, two nuclear plants in the area were damaged, releasing radioactive particles in the air and water.

Here's the crucial part: the author was unable to find anyone in the public or private sector who knew how much radiation had been leaked, even weeks after the fact. So Vollmann took his chances, hired taxis and explored the disaster areas with a translator and a dosimeter (a post-Geiger-Muller gadget) he'd bought in Sacramento, CA. Counting on the approximate radiation readings he was getting on his dosimeter, they interviewed people along the roadways and small villages who had not evacuated (which was mostly voluntary anyway). Floods, waste, debris, lack of clean water, and electric outages aside, few knew anything about the danger they or their families were in from radioactive fallout. They were not particularly angry, figured that things would eventually work out, and went about the work that had to be done--staying alive, looking for the missing, cleaning up, rebuilding.

As a journalistic report, the language is a bit heavy on metaphors, the narrative meanders at times, but the brave, on-the-ground concerning the disaster reveals how it was dealt with on the ground.

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Cardinal Robbins

A Writer in Search of a Story that Never Developed

Reviewed in the United States on August 22, 2012

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This was the first time I was left utterly disappointed by a Kindle Single, and especially by something written by a professional journalist. It's almost embarrassing to say this, but this piece read more like he was filling in people back home as he traveled in post-quake/post-tsunami Japan, than it did as a true article for publication. It's simply not clear what he was trying to accomplish while in Japan, nor what he wanted to accomplish in writing what he did.

I think a lot had to do with his timing, which was clearly off; the Japanese people were still trying to cope with the quake and tsunami, as opposed to concentrating fully on what had happened at Fukushima Daichi and the aftermath they would suffer from it. Had the author allowed more time to elapse, perhaps he would have found those he spoke with to be more focused on the literal fallout from the nuclear disaster.

While I can slightly recommend you read this if you're into general details about daily life near the exclusion zone, it's repetitive and short on real minutiae and depth when it comes to his 'interviews' of people affected by the triple disaster. His writing style is breezy and easy on the eyes, he seems like a person who was genuinely interested in learning about those who were the most affected by everything that happened, but there was no real backbone to the story. And the ending? There really wasn't one...it just...stopped. This would not have passed muster for a student of journalism, but it was possibly worth the money paid for it. The jury's still out on that one.

Personally, in retrospect, I should have given that money to the NYT instead and looked for more in-depth personal interest stories with a logical flow from start to finish. What I received here was a wandering monologue of sorts, with no real purpose other than to presumably satisfy the author's curiosity about post-Fukushima Japan.

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Forbidden Zone Falls Short of Expectations

Reviewed in the United States on May 10, 2011

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This was a disappointing Kindle single for me. I have read three other Kindle Singles and found them all to be top-notch. The subject matter and title immediately caught my attention and given my other Kindle Single experiences, I was ready for another great read.

The beginning was fairly engaging and Vollman's experience getting a dossimeter to measure radiation exposure when he got to Japan whet my appetite for the remainder of the story. However, I found the rest of the read rather disjointed and lacking real purpose or coherence. There were a range of interview snippets from various individuals once he got to Sendai and the earthquake zone, but nothing that grabbed me emotionally the way other great journalism on this tragedy has done. Furthermore, the question of nuclear power and particularly the fact that Japan had to suffer through this given the legacy and impact of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was never fully realized by Vollman.

In the end, this had far too many valleys over the course of the piece with just a few bright spots. At some point in the near future, someone will provide a more comprehensive historical account, similar to Douglas Brinkley's account of Hurrican Katrina. Until then, hold off on this as it does little to other existing and shorter form journalism pieces in places like the NYT, New Yorker, etc.

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Mark W. Anderson

A Glowing Review for a Now-Glowing Reporter

Reviewed in the United States on June 11, 2016

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I admit to being biased in favor of Mr. Vollman, partly because we are both residents of Sacramento. I also like the fact that while he has not pretensions about being technically inclined, he is not afraid to tackle technical issues and go into dangerously contaminated places totally unarmed with tech assistance. I am an engineer and have worked in nuclear plants, but I wouldn't go to some of the places he went to research this book. I also admire his persistence in questioning the rationale(?) offered by the Japanese utility and government, intended to placate the public.

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Top reviews from other countries

Linda Gauthier

Into the Forbidden Zone

Reviewed in Canada on June 7, 2013

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Very difficult to read, too technical and formal. I was looking forward to reading it but became disappointed pretty quickly. I stuck with it though and finished it.

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Into the Forbidden Zone: A Trip Through Hell and High Water in Post-Earthquake Japan (Kindle Single) Kindle Edition

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About the author

William T. Vollmann

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