Synopses & Reviews
WINNER OF THE J. ANTHONY LUKAS WORK-IN-PROGRESS AWARDandlt;BRandgt; andlt;BRandgt;andnbsp;andlt;BRandgt;Atop a craggy mesa in the northern reaches of the Navajo reservation lies what was once a world-class uranium mine called Monument No. 2. Discovered in the 1940sand#8212;during the governmentand#8217;s desperate press to build nuclear weaponsand#8212;the mesaand#8217;s tremendous lode would forever change the lives of the hundreds of Native Americans who labored there and of their families, including many who dwelled in the valley below for generations afterward. andlt;BRandgt;andlt;BRandgt;andlt;iandgt;Yellow Dirt andlt;/iandgt;offers readers a window into a dark chapter of modern history that still reverberates today. From the 1940s into the early twenty-first century, the United States knowingly used and discarded an entire tribe for the sake of atomic bombs. Secretly, during the days of the Manhattan Project and then in a frenzy during the Cold War, the government bought up all the uranium that could be mined from the hundreds of rich deposits entombed under the sagebrush plains and sandstone cliffs. Despite warnings from physicians and scientists that long-term exposure could be harmful, even fatal, thousands of miners would work there unprotected. A second set of warnings emerged about the environmental impact. Yet even now, long after the uranium boom ended, and long after national security could be cited as a consideration, many residents are still surrounded by contaminated air, water, and soil. The radioactive "yellow dirt" has ended up in their drinking supplies, in their walls and floors, in their playgrounds, in their bread ovens, in their churches, and even in their garbage dumps. And they are still dying. andlt;BRandgt;andlt;BRandgt;Transporting readers into a little-known country-within-a-country, award-winning journalist Judy Pasternak gives rare voice to Navajo perceptions of the world, their own complicated involvement with uranium mining, and their political coming-of-age. Along the way, their fates intertwine with decisions made in Washington, D.C., in the Navajo capital of Window Rock, and in the Western border towns where swashbuckling mining men trained their sights on the fortunes they could wrest from tribal land, successfully pressuring the government into letting them do it their way. andlt;BRandgt;andlt;BRandgt;andlt;iandgt;Yellow Dirt andlt;/iandgt;powerfully chronicles both a scandal of neglect and the Navajosand#8217; long fight for justice. Few had heard of this shameful legacy until Pasternak revealed it in a prize-winning andlt;iandgt;Los Angeles Times andlt;/iandgt;series that galvanized a powerful congressman and a famous prosecutor to press for redress and repair of the grievous damage. In this expanded account, she provides gripping new details, weaving the personal and the political into a tale of betrayal, of willful negligence, and, ultimately, of reckoning.
Review
"This compelling and compassionate book could not be more timely. A gripping story of the betrayal of the Navajos, it comes at a time where once again the human costs of energy production are slighted and both the government and corporations ride roughshod over the least powerful." Richard White, Pulitzer Prize finalist, Recipient of a Macarthur Fellowship, and Margaret Byrne Professor of American History, Stanford University
Review
"This book will break your heart. Not only an enormous achievement and#8211; literally, a piece of groundbreaking investigative journalism and#8211; it also illustrates exactly what careful, painstaking, and risk-taking reporting should do: Show us what weand#8217;ve become as a people, and sharpen our vision of who we, the people, ought to become."--andlt;Iandgt;The Christian Science Monitorandlt;/Iandgt;
Review
"Studded with vivid character sketches and evocative descriptions of theandnbsp;American landscape, Pasternak's scarifying account ofandnbsp; uranium mining's disastrous consequences often reads like a novel...does justic to theandnbsp;ethical and historialandnbsp;ambiguities while crafting a narrativeandnbsp;of exemplary clarity."--andlt;Iandgt;Los Angeles Timesandlt;/Iandgt;
Review
"Chilling. Has the cumulative power of scrupulousandnbsp;truth-telling and the value of old-style investigative reportage."--Laura Millerandlt;Iandgt;, Salonandlt;/Iandgt;
Review
and#8220;This book is a masterwork. It is journalism at its very bestand#8212;a story told fully and eloquently. A story that everyone should know.and#8221;andlt;BRandgt; and#8212;Michael Connelly, author of andlt;Iandgt;Nine Dragonsandlt;/Iandgt;
Review
and#8220;One of those stories that makes us believe all over again in journalism, in its power to bring truth to light.and#8221; and#8212;Harvardand#8217;s andlt;Iandgt;Nieman Narrative Digestandlt;/Iandgt;
Review
"An astounding book. Judy Pasternak has dug deeply into the archives and into the ground itself to uncover theandnbsp;real storyandnbsp;behind one of the darkest chapters of the Cold War on American soil.andnbsp;Withandnbsp;herandnbsp;dogged pursuit of theandnbsp;factsandnbsp;and an elegantandnbsp;prose style, Pasternak elevates investigative journalism into the realm of literature." -- Tom Zoellner, author of andlt;Iandgt;Uranium: War, Energy and the Rock that Shaped the Worldandlt;/Iandgt;
Review
"Disturbing and illuminating. Pasternak evokes the magnitude of a nuclear disaster that continues to reverberate. Unfolds like true crime, where real-life heroes and villains play dynamic roles in a drama that escalates page by page. Eye-opening and riveting, "Yellow Dirt" gives a sobering glimpse into our atomic past and adds a critical voice to the debate about resurrecting America's nuclear industry."--andlt;Iandgt;The Washington Postandlt;/Iandgt;
Review
"A window into a dark chapter of modern history that still reverberates today.Transporting readers into a little-known country-within-a-country, award-winning journalist Judy Pasternak gives rare voice to Navajo perceptions of the world, their own complicated involvement with uranium mining, and their political coming-of-age. A work of the highest quality journalism, an exposand#233; made possible by meticulous research... She has taken a large cast of characters, a bulging list of corporations and government agencies, and a scientific subject and managed to unite them in a story that the average reader can comprehend."--Stacy Rae Brownlie, andlt;Iandgt;BookBrowseandlt;/Iandgt;
Review
"This volume is an act of resurrection, well worth the contemporary reader's immersion in another life and time."and#8212;Annie Dawid, High Country News
Review
and#8220;Katie Galeand#8217;s story is unique in its scale; few accounts of the nineteenth-century Northwest focus on the life of a single Native woman and her family. LLyn De Danaanand#8217;s writing is big history made deeply human, offering insights not just into Native American history but also into the arrival of industrial capitalism on Puget Sound, the politics of statehood and race in Washington, and the profound transformation of local landscapes.and#8221;and#8212;Coll Thrush, author of Native Seattle: Histories from the Crossing-Over Place
Review
and#8220;I have followed LLyn De Danaanand#8217;s writing path for years now. She is talented and bold, and this new book puts her firmly where she belongsand#8212;at the heart of the American voice. Good stuff, highly recommended.and#8221;and#8212;Luis Alberto Urrea, author of The Deviland#8217;s Highway and Into the Beautiful North
Review
"Studded with vivid character sketches and evocative descriptions of the American landscape, journalist Judy Pasternak's scarifying account of uranium mining's disastrous consequences often reads like a novel -- though you will wish that the bad guys got punished as effectively as they do in commercial fiction. Real life is complicated, and Pasternak, a veteran of 24 years with the Los Angeles Times, does justice to the historical and ethical ambiguities of her tale while crafting a narrative of exemplary clarity." Wendy Smith, Los Angeles Times (Read the entire )
Synopsis
WINNER OF THE J. ANTHONY LUKAS WORK-IN-PROGRESS AWARD
Atop a craggy mesa in the northern reaches of the Navajo reservation lies what was once a world-class uranium mine called Monument No. 2. Discovered in the 1940s during the government s desperate press to build nuclear weapons the mesa s tremendous lode would forever change the lives of the hundreds of Native Americans who labored there and of their families, including many who dwelled in the valley below for generations afterward.
Yellow Dirt offers readers a window into a dark chapter of modern history that still reverberates today. From the 1940s into the early twenty-first century, the United States knowingly used and discarded an entire tribe for the sake of atomic bombs. Secretly, during the days of the Manhattan Project and then in a frenzy during the Cold War, the government bought up all the uranium that could be mined from the hundreds of rich deposits entombed under the sagebrush plains and sandstone cliffs. Despite warnings from physicians and scientists that long-term exposure could be harmful, even fatal, thousands of miners would work there unprotected. A second set of warnings emerged about the environmental impact. Yet even now, long after the uranium boom ended, and long after national security could be cited as a consideration, many residents are still surrounded by contaminated air, water, and soil. The radioactive "yellow dirt" has ended up in their drinking supplies, in their walls and floors, in their playgrounds, in their bread ovens, in their churches, and even in their garbage dumps. And they are still dying.
Transporting readers into a little-known country-within-a-country, award-winning journalist Judy Pasternak gives rare voice to Navajo perceptions of the world, their own complicated involvement with uranium mining, and their political coming-of-age. Along the way, their fates intertwine with decisions made in Washington, D.C., in the Navajo capital of Window Rock, and in the Western border towns where swashbuckling mining men trained their sights on the fortunes they could wrest from tribal land, successfully pressuring the government into letting them do it their way.
Yellow Dirt powerfully chronicles both a scandal of neglect and the Navajos long fight for justice. Few had heard of this shameful legacy until Pasternak revealed it in a prize-winning Los Angeles Times series that galvanized a powerful congressman and a famous prosecutor to press for redress and repair of the grievous damage. In this expanded account, she provides gripping new details, weaving the personal and the political into a tale of betrayal, of willful negligence, and, ultimately, of reckoning."
Synopsis
Award-winning reporter Judy Pasternak tells the haunting story of uranium mining on the Navajo desert and its terrible, long-ignored legacy.
Synopsis
Award-winning reporter Pasternak tells the haunting story of uranium mining on the Navajo desert and its terrible, long-ignored legacy.
Synopsis
A gravestone, a mention in local archives, stories still handed down around Oyster Bay: the outline of a woman begins to emerge and with her the world she inhabited, so rich in tradition, so shaken by violent change. Katie Kettle Gale was born into a Salish community in Puget Sound in the 1850s, just as settlers were migrating into what would become Washington State. With her people forced out of their accustomed hunting and fishing grounds into ill-provisioned island camps and reservations, Katie Gale sought her fortune in Oyster Bay. In that early outpost of multiculturalismand#8212;where Native Americans and immigrants from the eastern United States, Europe, and Asia vied for economic, social, political, and legal powerand#8212;a woman like Gale could make her way.
As LLyn De Danaan mines the historical record, we begin to see Gale, a strong-willed Native woman whoand#160;cofounded a successful oyster business, then wrested it away from her Euro-American husband, a man with whom she raised children and who ultimately made her life unbearable. Steeped in sadnessand#8212;with a lost home and a broken marriage, children dying in their teens, and tuberculosis claiming her at forty-threeand#8212;Katie Galeand#8217;s story is also one of remarkable pluck, a tale of hard work and ingenuity, gritty initiative and bad luck that is, ultimately, essentially American.
About the Author
Judy Pasternak is a writer who lives near Washington DC. She worked for the andlt;iandgt;Los Angeles Timesandlt;/iandgt; for 24 years, in Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington, tackling subjects as varied as al Qaeda's private airline, a band of right-wing bank robbers, backstage maneuvering at Dick Cheney's energy task force and the giant black hole at the center of the Milky Way. She has won numerous awards for environmental and investigative journalism. Previously, she worked at the andlt;iandgt;Detroit Free Pressandlt;/iandgt;, andlt;iandgt;Baltimore News Americanandlt;/iandgt; and Hollywood andlt;iandgt;(Fla.) Sun-Tattlerandlt;/iandgt;. She is married, with one son.andlt;BRandgt;andlt;BRandgt;andnbsp;