The Radioactive Boy Scout. Damn, Ken Silverstein can craft narrative incredibly well. He's been writing for Harper's Magazine for a while, and this 2005 paperback shows why. In fact, my first encounter with this story was in one of the first issues of Harper's Magazine that I ever read--he expanded a 1998 article on boy scout David Hahn's misguided nuclear pursuits (peaceful ones) into an enthralling book. What I like about Silverstein's narratives (the ones that have appeared in Harper's over the years) is how clever they are at maintaining speed (even suspense) as he weaves in larger social, cultural, economic, and psychological forces affecting his subjects (and us). The same holds true for The Radioactive Boy Scout: as we are engrossed in the story of David Hahn's pursuit of a scaled-down model of a nuclear reactor in his shed (by the way, he got so close the EPA showed up to remove the radioactive materials), we see how there weren't enough forces to steer David in the right direction, and too many forces encouraging him in the wrong direction.
