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A Story of Science and Salvation
Bantam Books
March 2013
On Sale: March 19, 2013
560 pages
ISBN: 055380653X
EAN: 9780553806533
Kindle: B009UBAPAU
Hardcover / e-Book
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Non-Fiction
“A thrilling journey through the twists and turns of cancer
epidemiology, 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: A Biography of Cancer
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.
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