Lake Effect: Two Sisters and a Town's Toxic Legacy

By Nancy Nichols

Book Overview

On her deathbed, Sue asked her sister for one thing: to write about the connection between the industrial pollution in their hometown and the rare cancer that was killing her. Fulfilling that promise has been Nancy Nichols' mission for more than a decade.

Lake Effect is the story of her investigation. It reaches back to their childhood in Waukegan, Illinois, an industrial town on Lake Michigan once known for good factory jobs and great fishing. Now Waukegan is famous for its Superfund sites: as one resident put it, asbestos to the north, PCBs to the south.

Drawing on her experience as a journalist, Nichols interviewed dozens of scientists, doctors, and environmentalists to determine if these pollutants could have played a role in her sister's death. While researching Sue's cancer, she discovered her own: a vicious though treatable form of pancreatic cancer. Doctors and even family urged her to forget causes and concentrate on cures, but Nichols knew that it was relentless questioning that had led to her diagnosis. And that it is questioning--by government as well as individuals--that could save other lives.

Lake Effect challenges us to ask why. It is the fulfillment of a sister's promise. And it is a call to stop the pollution that is endangering the health of all our families.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1597268216
• ISBN13: 9781597268219
• Release Date: August 2010
• Publisher: Island Press
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.1" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

Lake Effect:Two Sisters and a Town's Toxic Legacy

Well written, and a must read for anyone who grew up in Waukegan, IL (as my family did) and surrounding Lake Michigan shore line towns to the north and south. The information in the book could have serious health-related repracussions for the population, past and present,from that specific area.

excellent

this is a very well-written book. it provides an excellent background to environmental pollution and sets the record straight about the realitites of manufacturing and its by-products. the multi-hit theory of cancer is thoroughly explored. i am a doctor and i highly reccomend this important and very personal book to everyone without reservation.

A moving and powerful book

This book is short and potent. I love books that draw me in with candid personal thread and then reward me with consideration of larger ideas and questions, and Lake Effect does just that. Nancy Nichols masterfully weaves together the story of her and her sister's lives and cancers with a provocative big-picture look at why our society seems unable to make the crucial connections between environmental toxins and health. I've recommended the book to several friends who like smart, well-written books, with a personal angle.

Amazing

Nancy writes an amazing environmental memoir. It combines the rigorous research of a journalist with the touching honesty of a woman. This makes a great read for all: the scientist, the humanist, and the regular bloke like me.

An exceptional book that I could not put down

I rarely read a book in one sitting, but this one I could not put down. Nancy Nichols has put together a beautifully written and robustly researched book about her sister's - and her own - struggle with cancer, and her investigation into the links between these cancers and the contaminated lake of their childhood. What I love about the book is that it is as emotionally powerful as it is intellectually honest. There seems voluminous evidence to suggest a link between her old neighborhood and her family's cancers, but she does not let her writings resort to impulsive finger-pointing. She is journalistically rigorous, while being human, real and, at times, quite funny. A truly exceptional book - something for the heart and mind.