Overview
The riveting true story of a small town ravaged by industrial pollution,?Toms River?melds hard-hitting investigative reporting, a fascinating scientific detective story, and an unforgettable cast of characters into a sweeping narrative in the tradition of?A Civil Action, The Emperor of All Maladies,?and?The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.One of New Jersey?s seemingly innumerable quiet seaside towns, Toms River became the unlikely setting for a decades-long drama that culminated in 2001 with one of the largest legal settlements in the annals of toxic dumping. A town that would rather have been known for its Little League World Series champions ended up making history for an entirely different reason: a notorious cluster of childhood cancers scientifically linked to local air and water pollution. For years, large chemical companies had been using Toms River as their private dumping ground, burying tens of thousands of leaky drums in open pits and discharging billions of gallons of acid-laced wastewater into the town?s namesake river.
In an astonishing feat of investigative reporting, prize-winning journalist Dan Fagin recounts the sixty-year saga of rampant pollution and inadequate oversight that made Toms River a cautionary example for fast-growing industrial towns from South Jersey to South China. He tells the stories of the pioneering scientists and physicians who first identified pollutants as a cause of cancer, and brings to life the everyday heroes in Toms River who struggled for justice: a young boy whose cherubic smile belied the fast-growing tumors that had decimated his body from birth; a nurse who fought to bring the alarming incidence of childhood cancers to the attention of authorities who didn?t want to listen; and a mother whose love for her stricken child transformed her into a tenacious advocate for change.
A gripping human drama rooted in a centuries-old scientific quest,?Toms River?is a tale of dumpers at midnight and deceptions in broad daylight, of corporate avarice and government neglect, and of a few brave individuals who refused to keep silent until the truth was exposed.
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR AND?KIRKUS REVIEWS
?A thrilling journey full of twists and turns,?Toms River?is essential reading for our times. Dan Fagin handles topics of great complexity with the dexterity of a scholar, the honesty of a journalist, and the dramatic skill of a novelist.??Siddhartha Mukherjee, M.D., author of the Pulitzer Prize?winning?The Emperor of All Maladies
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?A complex tale of powerful industry, local politics, water rights, epidemiology, public health and cancer in a gripping, page-turning environmental thriller.??NPR
?Unstoppable reading.??The Philadelphia Inquirer
?Meticulously researched and compellingly recounted . . . It?s every bit as important?and as well-written?as?A Civil Action?and?The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.??The Star-Ledger
?Fascinating . . . a gripping environmental thriller.??Kirkus Reviews?(starred review)
?An honest, thoroughly researched, intelligently written book.??Slate
?[A] hard-hitting account . . . a triumph.??Nature
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?Absorbing and thoughtful.??USA Today
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780345538611 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Random House Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 03/19/2013 |
| Sold by: | Random House |
| Format: | NOOK Book |
| Pages: | 560 |
| Sales rank: | 295,335 |
| File size: | 4 MB |
About the Author
Table of Contents
Prologue: Marking Time
PART I. The Ice Cream Factory
Chapter 1. Pirates
Chapter 2. Insensible Things
Chapter 3. First Fingerprints
Chapter 4. Secrets
Chapter 5. Sharkey and Columbo at the Rustic Acres
Chapter 6. Cells
Chapter 7. On Cardinal Drive
PART II. Breach
Chapter 8. Water and Salt
Chapter 9. Hippies in the Kitchen
Chapter 10. The Coloring Contest
Chapter 11. Cases
Chapter 12. Acceptable Risks
Chapter 13. Friends and Neighbors
PART III. Counting
Chapter 14. Two Wards, Two Hits
Chapter 15. Cluster Busting
Chapter 16. Moving On
Chapter 17. Invisible Trauma
Chapter 18. A Cork in the Ocean
Chapter 19. Expectations
PART IV. Causes
Chapter 20. Outsiders
Chapter 21. Surrogacy
Chapter 22. Blood Work
Chapter 23. Associations
Chapter 24. Legacies
Afterword
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Notes
About the Author
What People are Saying About This
Advance praise for?Toms River
?A thrilling journey through the twists and turns of cancer epidemiology,?Toms River?is essential reading for our times. Dan Fagin takes us on a breathtaking tour through a wide terrain of topics?cancer, the environment, carcinogenesis and prevention?yet manages to keep us engaged with deeply personal stories. He handles topics of great complexity with the dexterity of a scholar, the honesty of a journalist, and the dramatic skill of a novelist.??Siddhartha Mukherjee, M.D., author of the Pulitzer Prize?winning?The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer
?A crisp, hard-nosed probe into corporate arrogance and the power of public resistance makes this environmental caper essential reading.??Publishers Weekly
?An award winning science journalist exposes how corporate interests and corrupt politicians almost turned a quiet, suburban New Jersey beach community into a toxic wasteland. . . . A gripping environmental thriller.??Kirkus Reviews
?At once intimate and objective,?Toms River?is the heartbreaking account of one town’s struggle with a legacy of toxic pollution. Dan Fagin has written a powerful and important book.??Elizabeth Kolbert, author of?Field Notes from a Catastrophe
?Toms River?is an epic tale for our chemical age. Dan Fagin has combined deep reporting with masterful storytelling to recount an extraordinary battle over cancer and pollution in a New Jersey town. Along the way?as we meet chemists, businessmen, doctors, criminals, and outraged citizens?we see how Toms River is actually a microcosm of a world that has come to depend on chemicals without quite comprehending what they might do to our health.??Carl Zimmer, author of?A Planet of Viruses?and?Parasite Rex
