Marking time -- The Ice Cream Factory. Pirates ; Insensible things ; First fingerprints ; Secrets ; Sharkey and Columbo at the Rustic Acres ; Cells ; On Cardinal Drive -- Breach. Water and salt ; Hippies in the kitchen ; The coloring contest ; Cases ; Acceptable risks ; Friends and neighbors -- Counting. Two wards, two hits ; Cluster busting ; Moving on ; Invisible trauma ; A cork in the ocean ; Expectations -- Causes. Outsiders ; Surrogacy ; Blood work ; Associations ; Legacies.
Summary
Recounts the decades-long saga of the New Jersey seaside town plagued by childhood cancers caused by air and water pollution due to the indiscriminate dumping of toxic chemicals, that culminated in 2001 with one of the largest legal settlements in the annals of toxic dumping.