Mill Town: Reckoning with What Remains is a 2020 book by Kerri Arsenault about the paper and pulp industry in the American city Rumford, Maine.
The book focusses on Rumford Mill and perceptions about the mill's health impact on the local community.
Reviewers described the book as part memoir and part exposé and firmly neither, making the claims in the book difficult to critique. Aside from the genre ambiguity, the book received positive critical reception.
Publication
Mill Town is a memoir, written by Kerri Arsenault, a Maine-based Acadian. Arsenault grew up in Mexico, near the United States border not far from Rumford, Maine. Mill Town is her first book.
The book's content largely relies on interviews undertaken by the author.
Synopsis
The book presents a series of essays by Arsenault. In the book, she recalls the mostly futile attempts by a physician known as Doc Martin to highlight his perceptions that local cancer rates were increased by the presence of dioxin pollutants from Rumford Mill. Dioxins are produced by the process of operating paper and pulp mills. In the book, the author recalls the advocacy efforts of Martin and the negative impact it had on his career as banks, the IRS, the Maine board of medicine, Rumford Hospital all undertook actions that had a negative impact on his efforts. Martin died of cancer.
Stories included in the book include that of local resident Dot Bernard, who died of cancer before the book was published. The book deals with tension felt by locals who wish for jobs, but also perceive health impacts from the mill. It presents the mill as the only significant employer in the city.
Critical reception
Emily Cooke writing for New York Times describes the writing as "earnest" and notes the opaqueness of a book that is part memoir part investigative journalism, but concretely neither. Alex Hanson, writing in Los Angeles Review of Books made the same observation. Michael Berry, writing in the Portland Press Herald described the book as an "intelligent mix of memoir and reportage."
The book won the Rachel Carson Environmental Book Award in 2021 and the Maine Literary Award for Nonfiction the same year.