I just finished Full Body Burden: Growing Up in the Nuclear Shadow of Rocky Flats by Arvada native Kristen Iverson. Judging by the 137-patron holds queue, I wasn’t the only one interested in what the author had to say about the former nuclear weapons production facility.
Full disclosure: I was born in 1982, 29 years after Rocky Flats began producing the plutonium triggers used in every weapon in the U.S. nuclear arsenal. I grew up nearby and was aware of Rocky Flats as a looming local symbol of the Cold War. I did not know, however, about the secrecy surrounding the place in its early years, the 1989 FBI raid and subsequent grand jury investigation, or the alarming extent of the plant’s environmental contamination. Iverson combines a skillfully researched narrative of Rocky Flats’ troubled history with a memoir of her own coming-of-age that mentions many familiar places. This is a story that deserves a wide audience.
What did other readers think of this book? How do you remember Rocky Flats?