Mill Town

Reckoning with What Remains

By: Kerri Arsenault

Narrated by: Kerri Arsenault

"This is a listen for anyone interested in small-town America, how it's changed, and why it matters...Though Arsenault may not be a professional narrator, her passion for these important stories comes through with just the right amount of sincerity." (AudioFile Magazine)

This program is read by the author.

A galvanizing and powerful debut, Mill Town is an American story, a human predicament, and a moral wake-up call that asks: What are we willing to tolerate and whose lives are we willing to sacrifice for our own survival?

Kerri Arsenault grew up in the rural working class town of Mexico, Maine. For over 100 years, the community orbited around a paper mill that employs most townspeople, including three generations of Arsenault’s own family. Years after she moved away, Arsenault realized the price she paid for her seemingly secure childhood. The mill, while providing livelihoods for nearly everyone, also contributed to the destruction of the environment and the decline of the town’s economic, physical, and emotional health in a slow-moving catastrophe, earning the area the nickname “Cancer Valley.”

Mill Town is an personal investigation, where Arsenault sifts through historical archives and scientific reports, talks to family and neighbors, and examines her own childhood to illuminate the rise and collapse of the working-class, the hazards of loving and leaving home, and the ambiguous nature of toxics and disease.

Mill Town is a moral wake-up call that asks: Whose lives are we willing to sacrifice for our own survival?

Kirkus Reviews Best Books of the Year - 2020
Barnes & Noble Best New Books of the Year - 2020
Chicago Tribune Best Books of the Year - 2020

A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin's Press

"While this is a portrait of a town in decline, it’s also a paean to the community that cared for it and those who have remained there, including Arsenault’s own classmates, friends, and family. The author’s unusually quiet, tender reading evinces that love, while also clearly setting that affection against the brutality of the forces that have laid Mexico low." (Booklist)

©2020 Kerri Arsenault (P)2020 Macmillan Audio

A Gut Punch Account

Beautifully written account of the poisoning of a community by a long-established, profitmongering paper mill.

Compelling past, present and future

I don’t live extraordinarily far from Rumford. In fact, my father worked in the papermill across the river from my home when I was a child. You could see the smoke stacks from the backyard under the 100 year old willow tree. This book really makes you think of what was done to our beautiful Maine land and what will become of it for our own children. I’ve always wondered (jokingly) what was in the water in my small town to make the special ed class my daughter is in so incredibly large and I now I know there really might be something in the water…

So Many Threads to This Story

Arsenault’s story isn’t just one story: it has numerous historical tributaries, each compelling—individual, family, Industrial, cultural. She considers her subject from many angles, and resists the urge to make it neat. The tension between a healthy economy and human and environmental health is made palpable. And while such a story can’t always be beautiful, Arsenault’s telling (and reading) of it is.

Eye-opening book

I really read this book as curiosity. My daughter selected this audio book as an assignment from UCLA. She used my account to get this book and so I said what the heck might as well listen to it. It’s scary to know that there is so much toxicity in our environment. This was truly an eye-opener. I definitely recommend this audiobook.

Poignant and important book

Wonderfully written and read story of an under appreciated topic near to many of us who grew up in New England.