Wednesday, October 24 - Full Body Burden

Tonight, 8 PM on Bibliocracy Radio, KPFK 90.7 FM in Southern California:  KRISTEN IVERSEN:  FULL BODY BURDEN. Any number of disciplines and styles, from science and poetry, journalism and memoir combine in writer Kristen Iversen’s Full Body Burden:  Growing Up in the Shadow of Rocky Flats, the title of her book a technical term for the measure of radioactive isotopes the human body can stand.  Growing up in the neighborhood of the nation’s only plutonium lab, Iversen’s furiously honest, heartbreaking and brave account of living in the nuclear shadow of Rocky Flats, Colorado explores the political and wider emotional life of an American who, as so many, has been lied to over and over again.  There’s the big story of nuclear weapons production and also of her average American family’s complicity in keeping secrets from her, from each other.  Iversen’s family and friends, her government, the apologists and the activists --- all are embraced in this landmark personal account of life – hers and ours - with the burden and responsibility of our duplicitous and ever-deadly war secrets and family secrets.  Kristen Iversen directs the MFA Program in Creative Writing Director at the University of Memphis, and edits the excellent literary journal, The Pinch.  She wrote the award-wining Molly Brown:  Unraveling the Myth.  Thanks for listening, live on radio or online, or as a free download from the KPFK station archives.  And thanks for your support of people-powered radio in Southern California.