Structure

The book begins with a prologue detailing the daily life of cancer survivor Michael Gillick. He serves as a human face for the disease. The book is then marked into four parts. The first part describes the early days of the Toms River Chemical factory. The second part shows when the relationship between the factory and the residents starts to decay. The third part describes the investigations into whether local polluters caused people to get sick. The fourth and final part explains the findings of the investigations, and what the entire experience causes for everyone involved.

Throughout this book, the Toms River coverage is interspersed with historical notation about the history of epidemiology and environmental science, as it pertains to Toms River and the studies going on there. The book ends with an Afterword written by the author two years after the book was originally published. It...