Debu's journey brings together many opposites: east and west, thoughts of adults on the young, old country -- new country, Hinduism -- Christianity, tradition and modernity. His odyssey takes him from an ancient land to a new one; sacred rivers flow through each, he creates himself anew as he moves between cultures. It is a voyage of discovery, but not just of places and environments and new friends and colleagues; there is an inner voyage that takes place too. In this kind of journey -- which takes place over decades, on several continents -- although most of these stories are set in Idaho in the last 20 years -- there is ample room for reflection, and doubt and crises of identity. Do I belong to one culture? Or another? Or does that question even have meaning any more? Not least of the gifts of this book is that as Debu ponders the changes that have come about in himself, among his fellow Indians who have come to the United States, and in everyone who has come to the American West, he sees himself in new ways, and we see ourselves in a new light too. That is a valuable gift.

Idaho and Calcutta. Himalayas and Tetron. Indians and Americans. Ganges and Snake river. All comes for a fascinating contiguity in all 16 episode composed by Debu Mojumder, an Indian from Calcutta transformed to American in Idaho Falls. He tales this story of transformation through different characters and creeds busy to establish their own identity. Along with the characters the nature, surrounding with all its content living or non living reacts in harmony. All are foreigner at some point. Episodes that can be shared by all in the global village.

From The Ganges To The Snake River: An East Indian In The American West is an engaging, thought-provoking collection of essays written over a period of twenty years in which Debu Majumdar (who was born and raised on the banks of India's Ganges River) wrote while living in Idaho Falls, Idaho during the 1980s and 1990s. The essays cover everything from Mormon missionaries and Native Americas to fishing and horses. Highly recommended and totally engaging, these cultural essays include: First Idaho Winter; Idaho Trout; Fourth of July; Tiger Hunt; Hunting; Mountain River Ranch; The Missionaries; Be Crazy About; An Excursion on the River; Pollywog Pond; The Poets' Club; A Place to Hang Your Hats; Oh Calcutta; At the Windcave; The Ramayana; and Indians Across the Ocean

McKeown certainly has a flair for the dramatic. A pity that when he applies this flair to an 'analysis' of the SL-1 accident he comes across as someone bucking for a movie deal. He plays up every possible innuendo and rumor about the servicemembers who died in the reactor explosion, along with all the gory details he could muster from the reams of technical information available about the incident.

If the story is unknown to most people, it is because most of them have never heard of Idaho, to say nothing of the National Reactor Testing Station (now the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory).

The story of SL-1 can hardly be described as as unknown to anyone in the nuclear industry. A pity he didn't pay a bit more attention to technical accuracy in his descriptions than to the dozens of pet theories about the state of mind of the operators on duty in the control room. SL-1 was an experimental reactor built in the late fifties at Idaho's National Reactor Testing Station. It was a prototype for small, portable reactors the Army hoped could power radar stations along the Distant Early Warning (DEW) radar line along the northern edge of the continent during the Cold War. It and dozens of other reactors were built on the Idaho desert in order to advance the science of reactor design, safety and engineering.

Dozens of technical factors contributed to the accident, but McKeown ignores everything that was learned from the accident, and admits we'll never know the 'real' cause of the incident, implying cover-up and conspiracy. I could swear I heard the 'X-Files' music playing as I finished the book.

If you're after a bit less dramatic version of the accident, try 'Proving the Principle' by Susan Stacy.

I read this book while visiting my son in Idaho Falls this summer. I found it quite interesting, so much so that I drove the fifty miles or so out of the city into the Lost River desert, and toured the facility where nuclear energy was first generated back in 1951.

This is a well-written book, and I thought the author did a fine job of presenting all sides of this little-known mystery.