Full Body Burden: Growing Up in the Nuclear Shadow of Rocky Flats Audiobook

Quotes

• “Ms. Iverson has delivered an intimate history of the environmental abuses at Rocky Flats…[Full Body Burden] becomes a potent examination of the dangers of secrecy.”

  — New York Times

• “Iversen writes her 50-year account in the present tense, a choice that lends her narrative a crackling immediacy. She writes with an eloquent precision, surprises frequently with personal anecdotes and abrupt, savory transitions. The result is fiercely non-polemical, nuanced, and ultimately fully convincing…Iversen’s account of two fires at the plant separated by 30 years, one of which nearly went critical, sears with first-person, real-time immediacy…Resonates with deep personal honesty…When she writes about the historical actors outside her personal orbit it is with a clarity of purpose and an economy of motion…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 reporting, extensive interviews, and review of FBI and EPA documents show 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.”

  — Guardian (UK)

• “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…The grief was ongoing, as Iversen renders in her masterly use of the present tense, conveying tremendous suspense and impressive control of her material.”

  — Publishers Weekly (starred review)

• “Iversen seems to have been destined to write this shocking and infuriating story of a glorious land and a trusting citizenry poisoned by Cold War militarism and ‘hot’ contamination, secrets and lies, greed and denial…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)

• “Superbly crafted tale of Cold War America’s dark underside.”

  — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

• “With meticulous reporting and a clear eye for details, Iversen has crafted a chilling, brilliantly written cautionary tale about the dangers of blind trust. Through interviews, sifting through thousands of records (some remain sealed), and even a stint as a Rocky Flats receptionist, she uncovers decades of governmental deception. Full Body Burden is both an engrossing memoir and a powerful piece of investigative journalism.”

  — BookPage