Author Kristen Iverson seems to be telling us two vastly different stories in Full Body Burden. The first is her own story of growing up in Arvada, Colorado - normal stuff about family and friends and pets and school.
The common thread is the ultimate cost of continual denial. The author refers repeatedly to the closed conversations within her family. There were some things you just didn't talk about; whether they were true or not was irrelevant. Her father's alcoholism symbolizes her family's emotional distance from reality. The gradual slide becomes a slippery slope and half-truths become untruths. As her parents' marriage goes into meltdown they desperately try to fill the cracks in the facade and refuse to deal with the problems around them.
The federal agencies charged with regulating Rocky Flats tried first to deny there was an issue at all; defining 'healthy' limits of radioactive exposure when there was no research to base those numbers on. As the leakage of radioactivity and information continued, the DOE tried to do a patch job, throwing the stone wall of "National Security" around the crumbling infrastructure, facts be damned.
Even today, the truth regarding Rocky Flats (now a National Wildlife Refuge) is not fully known: "The final contamination levels of Rocky Flats itself as measured by the U.S. government after the Superfund cleanup, and those reported to an impanelled grand jury, are sealed records and have not been reported to the public." [Wikipedia] The denial continues.
While Ms. Iverson does an excellent job pulling the threads of her twin stories together, there were a few points in the narrative where I felt a little confused about the timeline of events, and a little lost in the turmoil of her family. I imagine she felt the same. A solid four stars with those qualifications, and a huge "Thank you" to the author for bringing us this work. (Note: This reviewer lived and worked in the Denver Metro area for twenty years.)
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