October 1, 2012 Kristen Iversen, who directs the M.F.A. program in creative writing at the University of Memphis, continues to gather praise for her memoir, Full Body Burden: Growing Up in the Nuclear Shadow of Rocky Flats. Among recent notices for Iversen, Dwight Garner of The New York Times praised the book, calling it “a simmering and sickening book that runs on two downward sloping tracks.” One of these tracks follows Iversen’s childhood home life near Denver, Colorado, while the other track details a chilling history of disaster and cover-up at nearby Rocky Flats, a factory dedicated to the production of nuclear warhead triggers containing plutonium. Garner writes that these two stories begin to intersect “in powerful ways,” creating “a potent examination of the dangers of secrecy.”
Two more reviews of Full Body Burdencan be found in The Independent and in OnEarth Magazine..
Last month, Iversen also gave several interviews about the book, most notably in The Atlantic, which sought Iversen’s thoughts on “A September 11th Catastrophe You’ve Probably Never Heard About”. The Q&A was occasioned by the fifty-fifth anniversary of the disastrous 1957 fire at Rocky Flats. The San Antonio Current spoke at lengthwith Iversen on a range of questions about the true costs of nuclear power. The Memphis Flyer asked Iversenabout her busy schedule of appearances in recent months and about the variety of reactions prompted by the intense subject matter of her book.
Click here to read Chapter 16’s review of Full Body Burden and herefor a roundup of earlier reviews of the book.
For more updates on Tennessee authors, please visit Chapter 16’s News & Notes page, here.
