Atomic Farmgirl

Atomic Farmgirl is a wise irreverent deeply personal story of growing up right in the wrong place. The granddaughter of German Lutheran homesteaders Teri Hein was raised in the 1950s and 1960s in rural eastern Washington. This starkly elegant landscape serves as the poignant backdrop to her story for one hundred miles to the south of this idyllic all-American setting lay the toxins both mental and physical of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. From horseback riding to haying Flag Day parades to Cold War duck-and-cover drills Atomic Farmgirl chronicles a peculiar coming of age for a young girl and her community of hardworking patriotic folk whose way of life and livelihood are gradually threatened by the poisons of progressbining a profoundly tender story of youth with politics and an unmistakable sense of place Teri Hein has written a memoir that is part Terry Tempest Williams part Erin Brockovich part Garrison Keillor. In the end she offers a rich and ribald journey into the universal mysteries of childhood love community and home a journey that confirms humankinds infinite capacity for hope.