Review
From the book jacket: Nancy Zafris follows a colorful cast of characters
into uncharted fictional territory, this time landing in the canyon country of
the desert Southwest in 1954. For motivations as straightforward as striking it
rich to reasons far more complex and confounding, they each embark on very
personal divergent journeys across an unforgiving countryside, even while their
quest to find uranium unites them. By turns meditative and funny, frightening,
witty and refreshingly wise,
Lucky Strike explores the ways that language
simply put can mine the inexpressible. In the process, a young widow and her two
children learn much about uranium but even more about the nature of the love
that binds them. This is a story to touch your heart.
Comment: Young widow Jean Waterman is determined to give her seriously
ill 10-year-old son,...
Beyond the Book
Nancy Zafris is the author of two novels,
Lucky Strike and
The Metal
Shredders (2002), and a book of stories,
The People I Know (1990).
She says that she was struck with the idea for
Lucky Strike after reading a
Utah guidebook that talked about the 1950s uranium rush, comparing it
to the gold rush a century earlier.
Although the USA government sponsored Uranium Rush is far less well
remembered than the Gold Rush, at the time it was big news. Some
sources claim that more prospectors scoured the Utah deserts during
the mid 1950s than ever invaded California during the rush for gold!
Nancy's currently busy writing a book for her son's 12th...
