Synopses & Reviews
A wise, irreverent, and bittersweet story of a farmgirl's coming of age on a radioactive prairie. The Palouse Hills in eastern Washington State are known as home of the golden wheatlands.
Synopsis
The Palouse Hills in the eastern part of Washington State are known as home of the golden wheatlands, a place with some of the richest topsoil in the world. It is also a region forever changed by the dispersal of nuclear waste--accidental and intentional--from the Hanford Atomic Plant only 100 miles south. In Atomic Farmgirl, Teri Hein explores a childhood there filled with horseback riding, haying, casseroles, a stoic German Lutheran tradition, and the Cold War duck-and-cover drills of the 50s. She finds both revelations and sweet ironies.
About the Author
Teri Hein grew up on a wheat farm in eastern Washington, where her great-grandparents originally homesteaded. In the years since she left home for college, she has led an adventurous life--teaching abroad, rafting the Grand Canyon, traveling to northwestern Pakistan to learn firsthand about the plight of Afghani women refugees and doing research in the Amazon Jungle.