From the Bookshelf of Ms. Reviews & Bookmarks…
Find A Copy At
Group Discussions About This Book
No group discussions for this book yet.
What Members Thought
Having grown up in Mastic Beach, Shirley's neighboring little sister-town, I simply had to read this book after hearing Kelly McMasters interviewed on the Brian Lehrer show on WNYC.
I'm not really a memoir sort of person, but I loved the way McMasters intertwined her personal story with her research on the Brookhaven National Laboratory and its impact on her community. Her imagery combined with personal and historical facts made for a complex web of personal and political writing that is extreme ...more
I'm not really a memoir sort of person, but I loved the way McMasters intertwined her personal story with her research on the Brookhaven National Laboratory and its impact on her community. Her imagery combined with personal and historical facts made for a complex web of personal and political writing that is extreme ...more
Kelly and I went to college together and were 2 of the 12 International Studies majors in our class. We bumped into each other on Columbia's campus 5 or 6 years later when both of us were there for our master's degrees. She told me about all of the research she was doing on breast cancer rates and radiation exposure on Long Island, but I had no idea she had turned her research into a book until I joined GoodReads. Shortly after I joined I clicked on the "authors" link and her photo was there alo
...more
"Welcome to Shirley" is McMasters' memoir of her hometown, Shirley, Long Island, and the nuclear laboratory in it's midst, The Brookhaven National Laboratory. Shirley is a stain of a town that sits ignored and scoffed at in the shadow of The Hamptons. Cancer is rampant in Shirley and the immediate surrounding towns and touches just about everyone in McMaster's life. She writes about the activism that ensued to try and figure out what exactly was causing the cancer - it's scary to read of all the
...more
Jul 07, 2008
Marie
marked it as to-read
