A recently released book by a University of Memphis associate professor is creating a buzz here and abroad, bringing dramatic changes to the life of author Kristen Iversen.
"Full Body Burden: Growing Up in the Nuclear Shadow of Rocky Flats" is 350 pages of investigative journalism wrapped around a brutally honest personal memoir. Iversen, who grew up in Arvada, Colo., next door to one of the country's most contaminated nuclear weapons production facilities, interweaves the story of a family that turned a blind eye to her father's alcoholism while their community largely ignored the serious health threat posed by a poorly managed bomb factory.
"When I first started thinking about the book, it was as a memoir of growing up with horses, dogs and cats and the enigmatic story of a troubled father and everything that happened around that," she recalled. "But Rocky Flats was always the big secret of my childhood - the big monolith. We could see the water tower from our back porch. We never knew what went on there."
Because Dow Chemical Co. operated Rocky Flats until 1975, Iversen's mother repeated the story that the plant manufactured Scrubbing Bubbles cleaning products. In reality, it produced more than 70,000 plutonium triggers for nuclear bombs over a period of five decades. All the while, news of serious fires and accidents was suppressed as the plant leaked toxic radioactive materials into the lakes, streams, soil and air near the major populations of Denver and Boulder.
Iversen, who received her doctorate in English from the University of Denver, lived in Germany prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall. She said she hoped to write about the end of the Cold War.
"One of the great ironies of my life is that I spent a lot of time trotting around the globe trying to find good things to write about," she said. "From third grade on, I knew that a writer was who I was and what I wanted to do, but I thought, 'Hey. I grew up in suburbia and nothing happens here.'"
After returning from Europe to her Colorado home, she soon discovered the Cold War story she sought was literally in her own back yard.
As a single mother and student, Iversen began supporting her family by working as a typist at the nuclear weapons facility, frequently transcribing reports describing "incidents" there and using odd acronyms such as MUF (materials unaccounted for). Although she kept a journal and had begun secretly taking notes about her employer, she credits a report broadcast on ABC's "Nightline" as the impetus to begin serious research for a book.
"I came home from work, picked up the kids, gave them their suppers, put them to bed, came down and fixed myself a cup of tea," she said. "I'll never forget that moment. I turned on the television and there was a 'Nightline' exposé on Rocky Flats with some of the people I worked with. It was absolutely jaw dropping."
She would soon learn that the "materials unaccounted for" amounted to 3,000 pounds of plutonium - enough to make hundreds of atomic bombs. Knowing that a millionth of a gram of plutonium breathed into the lungs or ingested into the body can cause cancer, the potential effects of one and a half tons of lost plutonium was difficult for her to fathom.
In her Patterson Hall office, Iversen, who directs the Masters of Fine Arts Program in Creative Writing at the U of M, points to several boxes of papers stacked to the ceiling and talks about the decade of research required to put together such an expansive narrative.
"That's about a tenth of it," she said, noting years of listening to over 200 oral histories, conducting numerous interviews and sifting through mountains of medical and environmental research, grand jury testimony, thousands of news clippings and other documents.
Although her first book was published in 1999, the release of "Full Body Burden" has cast Iversen in a new role.
"I have so many requests for speaking engagements that I can't keep up with them - all over the country," she said. "I didn't write this book as any sort of polemic or with an agenda in mind. I don't think of myself as an activist and certainly did not in the beginning. I think of myself as a writer, an investigative journalist and a memoirist."
"But the story turned out to be about my own sense of awakening," she said. "I now understand how I feel about nuclear weapons, nuclear weapons policy, private corporations being involved with the nuclear weapons industry and some of the problems with that in terms of transparency and policy. I think I have become an activist."
Jackie Dulle, a former St. Jude Children's Research Hospital employee who now lives in Santa Fe, N.M., said she was impressed by Iversen when she spoke at the "Vision Without Fission" conference held there last month.
"Kristen was a member of the panel 'Community Stories of the Nuclear Legacy,'" Dulle said. "I was so touched by her account of living near Rocky Flats and then even working there as a young woman - and now her activist role in raising awareness of the costs and consequences of nuclear weapons. I found her to be most inspirational."
Iversen is teaching one class this semester, citing an exhaustive itinerary.
"I just printed out my schedule," she said, pulling sheets from her desk drawer. "It is crazy."
She will be in the nation's capital on Sept. 20 to speak at the Coalition Against Nukes Rally.
"Then I'm going back to D.C. a week or two later to speak at the Smithsonian and I'm really excited about that," she said. "I'm also the keynote speaker at a conference in Seattle at what is called the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability. I will be sharing the agenda with former Secretary of Energy Hazel O'Leary and other people of that caliber."
Already, Iversen has been a featured guest on National Public Radio's "Fresh Air" and has appeared on C-Span's "Book TV." Excerpts have been published in Reader's Digest and The Nation.
"I do several radio interviews a week all over the country," she said.
Holding a new edition with a revised cover that is being marketed in Great Britain, Iversen enthusiastically describes the success of the book there.
"This is what the U.K. version looks like," she said. "The book is doing really well in the U.K. It's attracting a lot of interest. I've been doing interviews in Scotland, Ireland, London, and then this summer when I'm finished with my U.S. tour, I'm going to the Edinburgh Literary Festival and doing readings in London."
Iversen will offer a reading and book signing at the Marcus W. Orr Center for the Humanities today at the Pink Palace Museum at 6:30 p.m., followed by another at Burke's Book Store on Cooper Street at 5 p.m. Friday. On Oct. 6, she will appear at the Memphis Public Library Main Branch. Another reading and book signing is scheduled for 6 p.m. on Oct. 16 at The Booksellers at Laurelwood.
Local writer and bookstore owner Corey Mesler said Iversen has already earned a place as a beloved member of the Memphis literary community.
"I love Kristen," Mesler said. "She is a wonderful writer, wonderful supporter of other writers, wonderful keeper of the flame for the written word. And she is so nice. Her success is celebrated by all who know her."
Iversen remains somewhat awed at the attention "Full Body Burden" is receiving.
"I didn't know if anyone would even publish this book," she said. "It was such a surprise when it was finished and I had this great agent in New York. It was auctioned, then everything just accelerated. There were twelve publishers who wanted it. It was such a surprise to me."
