McKay Jenkins reads from his new book "What's Gotten Into Us?"

A few years ago, McKay Jenkins, a professor of journalism at the University of Delaware, went in for a routine medical exam and came out with the knowledge that a tumor the size of a navel orange was growing in his abdomen. A lifelong fitness buff, wilderness explorer and organic gardener, Jenkins wanted to know why.  Doctors asked him hundreds of questions about his exposure to toxins and chemicals, about his work environment and about the products he used in his home.  Alarmed, Jenkins set out to answer a new, larger question: how have we gotten to the point where we are content to surround ourselves with dangerous toxins at home, at work, and in our yards; where chemical giants operate virtually unchecked and where a concerned parent has almost no way of finding out what the toy her child is putting in his or her mouth is made of? 

McKay Jenkins is the author of The Last Ridge, The White Death, and Bloody Falls of the Coppermine.  The Tilghman Professor of English and Journalism at the University of Delaware, Jenkins lives with his wife and two children in Baltimore.