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| Welcome to Shirley: A Memoir from an Atomic Town
Hardcover
Author: Kelly McMasters
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Release Date: 2008-04-21
ISBN-10: 1586484869
ISBN-13: 9781586484866
List Price: $24.95
Average Customer Rating:
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Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com
Shirley seemed to be doomed from the beginning. Founded by a Vaudevillian huckster who touted it as a seaside haven despite the sand bar that blocks access to the shore, the town has been plagued by one disaster after another—a UFO, a childhood cancer cluster, and a mysterious federal nuclear laboratory in nearby Brookhaven that leaked toxic nuclear and chemical waste into the aquifer from which the residents unknowingly drew their well water. This is Kelly McMasters' account of growing up in a cursed town and loving it anyway, and of a girl's awakening to tragedy and to a sense of mission. Told in a deliciously engaging voice, Welcome to Shirley balances the bitter with the sweet, the funny with the infuriating, in an unforgettable story of working class Long Island.
Great writer/Great read
| Customer Rating: | | 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. |
Welcome to Shirley
| Customer Rating: | 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. |
Great Book and a quick read
| Customer Rating: | 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. |
I too grew up in Shirley!
| Customer Rating: | | 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. |
A Work Of Fiction
| Customer Rating: | As other reviewers have noted, this book is full of inaccuracies. Though the author seems to describe a great childhood with lots of friends, a stay at home mother, a family that loves her and a supportive network of neighbors - she also bashes the town and calls it 'white trash' and says that she's ashamed to admit she's from there. Sounds to me like she had an opportunity to make the town a better place and decided to knock it down some more so she could sell some books.
Ms. McMasters also does not view anything but potential atomic waste as reasons for every health ailment that befalls a resident of Shirley. What about the town dump nearby? Discharge from boats on the water? Poor eating habits, proximity to farmlands where various pesticides and herbicides are used. She's basically looking for things to prove her case about BNL being the cause of all the towns ills rather than actually seeking answers.
The stories of her family life were interesting, but the BNL tangent was a work of fiction that doesn't really fit into the book. I'm glad I borrowed my copy from my local library and didn't support McMaster's bashing of Shirley and BNL by purchasing this book.
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