In this harrowing yet lovely memoir, poet Antonetta (Bardo) describes her childhood vacations in New Jersey's Pine Barrens, a holiday spot replete with crabbing, fishing and sunbathing—and a local water system tainted by nuclear waste, pesticides, cyanide, lead, mercury and other poisons. Some 30 years later, she relates, that region "is the center of a cluster of childhood cancers of the brain and nervous system." While Antonetta's subtle prose deftly suggests a child's perspective on the Cold War and the threat of nuclear disaster—air raid drills, for instance— the reader is painfully aware that the real danger lies, literally, in the author's own backyard. This tension between Antonetta's everyday adolescent experiences and the radioactive horror surrounding her developing body gives the narrative its peculiar strength. For instance, Antonetta skillfully juxtaposes a description of her first period with a GE employee's statement that nuclear plants shipping radioactive materials lined the boxes with, of all things, sanitary pads: " 'What keeps a nuclear plant running is lots of Kotex, lots of masking tape, and lots of plastic bags." Readers will be alternately repelled and fascinated by Antonetta's accounts of catching and eating fish from contaminated water, and using the water to make drinks, wash dishes or shower. Although the book's target audience includes fans of Jonathan Harr's A Civil Action, this fascinating meditation on the body's tenuous relationship to its past and our stubborn nostalgia for places that may prove dangerous is far more poetic than most nonfiction legal thrillers. (June 1)
