Catalog

Record Details

Search Results

Catalog Search

Search Results

Advanced Search

Additional search filters and navigation

Back to Results
Image of item
A girl's guide to missiles : growing up in America's secret desert Book
author.Piper, Karen Lynnea 1965-
Book | Viking, New York, New York : [2018]
  • 1 of 1 Copy Available at Libraries in Niagara Cooperative
  • 0 current holds with 1 total copy.
Place Hold
Branch Call Number Location Holdable? Status
Welland Main 358.17092 Pip Adult Non-fiction Copy hold / Volume hold Available
About
"A poignant, surreal, and fearlessly honest look at growing up on one of the most secretive weapons installations on earth, by a young woman who came of age with missiles. The China Lake missile range is located in a huge stretch of the Mojave Desert, about the size of the state of Delaware. It was created during the Second World War, and has always been shrouded in secrecy. But people who make missiles and other weapons are regular working people, with domestic routines and everyday dilemmas, and four of them were Karen Piper's parents, her sister, and--when she needed summer jobs--herself. Her dad designed the Sidewinder, which was ultimately used catastrophically in Vietnam. When her mom got tired of being a stay-at-home mom, she went to work on the Tomahawk. Once, when a missile nose needed to be taken offsite for final testing, her mother loaded it into the trunk of the family car, and set off down a Los Angeles freeway. Traffic was heavy, and so she stopped off at the mall, leaving the missile in the parking lot. Piper sketches in the belief systems--from Amway's get-rich schemes to propaganda in The Rocketeer to evangelism, along with fears of a Lemurian takeover and Charles Manson--that governed their lives. Her memoir is also a search for the truth of the past and what really brought her parents to China Lake with two young daughters, a story that reaches back to her father's World War II flights with contraband across Europe. Finally, it recounts the crossroads moment in a young woman's life when she finally found a way out of a culture of secrets and fear, and out of the desert."--Provided by publisher.
Details
  • ISBN: 9780399564543 (hardcover)
  • Physical Description: x, 322 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 24 cmprint
  • Publisher: New York, New York : Viking, [2018]
  • Copyright: ©2018
  • Bibliography, etc. Note: Includes bibliographical references.
  • Formatted Contents Note: Becoming China Lakers -- A teenage weaponeer -- Dynamic instability -- The Cold War at home -- Anything can be a weapon -- Off target -- Life without weapons.
Related
Subjects
Genre

Additional Resources