Mill Town

Reckoning with What Remains

Mill Town
Kerri Arsenault
RRP:
NZ$ 42.99
Our Price:
NZ$ 32.24
Paperback
h210 x 137mm - 368pg
7 Sep 2021 US
International import eta 7-19 days
9781250799685
Out Of Stock
Currently no stock in-store, stock is sourced to your order
Kerri Arsenault grew up in the rural working-class town of Mexico, Maine. For over 100 years the community orbited around a paper mill that employs most townspeople, including three generations of Arsenault' s own family. Years after she moved away, Arsenault realized the price she paid for that seemingly secure childhood. The mill, while providing livelihoods for nearly everyone, also contributed to the destruction of the environment and the decline of the town' s economic, moral, and emotional health in a slow-moving catastrophe, earning the area the nickname "Cancer Valley. " Mill Town is an investigative memoir, as Arsenault undertakes an excavation of a collective past, sifting through historical archives and scientific reports, talking to family and neighbors, and examining her own childhood to present a portrait of a community that illuminates not only the ruin of her hometown and the collapse of the working-class of America, but also the hazards of both living in and leaving home, and the ambiguous nature of toxics and disease. In exquisite prose, Arsenault explores the corruption of bodies: the human body, bodies of water, and governmental bodies, and what it' s like to come from a place you love but which doesn' t always love you back. A galvanizing and powerful debut, Mill Town is an American story, a human predicament, and a moral wake-up call that asks: what are we willing to tolerate and whose lives are we willing to sacrifice for our own survival?
One of O Magazine' s Best Books of Fall 2020 "Trenchant and aching. . . What Arsenault has provided is a model of persistence, thoughtful reflection and vividly human personal narrative in uncovering a heartbreaking story that could be told in countless American towns, along countless American rivers. "--Steve Paul, Minneapolis Star-TribuneArsenault combines memoir with investigative journalism in this tale of the toxic paper mill at the center of her Maine hometown, an area now nicknamed Cancer Valley. --People Lyrical and compelling prose. . . What Arsenault presents, with mesmerizing lyricism and endearing honesty, is the story of a dying town wedded to a paper mill that once anchored the local economy while also bringing pollution and cancer. Mill Town puts forth larger questions of the human relationship to the environment; of the violence done to the land that eventually translates into the devastation of the people that live on it. Arsenault' s loyalty is not simply to a limited idea of health that would be typified by paying the ailing damages but on the injustice done to the land on a larger scale. --Rafia Zakaria, The BafflerIn this masterful debut, the author creates a crisp, eloquent hybrid of atmospheric memoir and searing expose. . . Bittersweet memories and a long-buried atrocity combine for a heartfelt, unflinching, striking narrative combination. --Kirkus Reviews (starred)[A] powerful, investigative memoir. . . . Arsenault paints a soul-crushing portrait of a place that' s suffered ' the smell of death and suffering' almost since its creation. This moving and insightful memoir reminds readers that returning home--the heart of human identity--is capable of causing great joy and profound disappointment. --Publisher' s Weekly (starred) Arsenault' s compelling debut asks readers to consider how relationships between humans and nature impact our bodies and environment. . . . [A] powerful memoir. --Library Journal An imposing work of narrative nonfiction. . . Arsenault' s account is enlivened by vivid prose, often coolly analytical and yet deeply lyrical. Mexico' s melancholy story--one that' s mirrored today in thousands of struggling small towns across the U. S. --comes to life in Arsenault' s sympathetic, but unfailingly clear-eyed, telling. --Harvey Freedenberg, Shelf Awareness In Mill Town, Kerri Arsenault has managed a literary hat trick, combining humanity, science, and capitalism, and the price paid not only by her own family in a single state, but across generations, industries, and geographies. She has laid out, in elegant prose and harrowing reportage, the price we may all pay, and in this, she has managed to create at once both a cautionary tale and a literary treasure. --Rachel Louise Snyder, author of No Visible Bruises: What We Don' t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us"[Mill Town] is about the better, more prosperous American life those industries afforded us before we fell ill, as well as the Devil' s bargain that made all this possible, maybe even inevitable. Mill Town is for anyone who' s ever wondered about the Calvinistic calculus whereby the elect become truly wealthy while the damned (read: poor, dark-skinned, newly arrived) find early graves. " --Richard Russo, author of Chances Are. . . and Empire Falls"Mill Town is a powerful, blistering, devastating book. Kerri Arsenault is both a graceful writer and a grieving daughter in search of answers and ultimately, justice. In telling the story of the town where generations of her family have lived and died, she raises important and timely questions. " --Dani Shapiro, author of Inheritance"The book of a lifetime; a deep-drilling, quick-moving, heartbreaking story. Scathing and tender, it is written in a clear-running prose that lifts often into poetry, but comes down hard when it must. Through it all runs the river of Mill Town: sluggish, ancient, dangerous, freighted with America' s sins. This is a book about residues and legacies; I know that Mill Town will stay with me for years to come. " --Robert Macfarlane, author of Underland Arsenault' s pursuit of truth is as compassionate as it is relentless. The result, her book, is tender, enthralling, and, ultimately, devastating. --Jonathan Lethem, author of Motherless Brooklyn and The Arrest Arsenault' s relentless, unsparing exploration goes to the heart of American life, and I can think of no book that' s more relevant to this moment in time than Mill Town. Ben Fountain, author of Billy Lynn' s Long Halftime WalkThis fierce and impeccably researched work really got my blood boiling about the plunder mechanism of capitalism and its blow against life. --Emily Raboteau, author of Searching for ZionA vivid insight to the unbuilding of an American dream, this will be one of the major nonfiction books of a year in which the debate over what America is will rage. --John Freeman, author of Dictionary of the Undoing and editor of Freeman' s
KERRI ARSENAULT is the Book Review Editor at Orion magazine, and Contributing Editor at Lithub. Arsenault received her MFA in Creative Writing from The New School and studied in Malmoe University' s Communication for Development master' s programme. Her writing has appeared in Freeman' s, Lithub, Oprah. com, and The Minneapolis Star Tribune, among other publications. She lives in New England. This is her first book.
Status: Indent title, imported to order
ISBN-13: 9781250799685
Published: 7 Sep 2021
Published In: United States
Imprint: Saint Martin's Griffin (US)
Publisher: St Martin's Press
Format: Paperback
Height: 210mm
Width: 137mm
Weight: 300g
Pages: 368

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