For more than a century, nearly everyone in the rural town of Mexico, Maine, worked in the paper mill, including three generations of Kerri Arsenault's family. Years after she moved away, Arsenault saw the price she paid for her happy childhood, realizing that the mill, while providing the social and economic cohesion for the community, also contributed to its demise. A winner of the Rachel Carson Environment Book Award, Arsenault's work of investigative memoir and cultural criticism traces the rise and collapse of the working-class, the hazards of loving and leaving home, and the toxic nature of industry, while asking: Who or what are we willing to sacrifice for our own survival?

"Arsenault's compelling debut asks readers to consider how relationships between humans and nature impact our bodies and environment…. [A] powerful memoir."—Library Journal