Gray Mountain by John Grisham
Samantha is a lawyer at a big real estate firm in New York City when the recession hits. She is furloughed for a year, which means she gets to keep her benefits and potentially be reinstated in a year, provided she works for a nonprofit during that time.
She ends up in Appalachia working for a legal aid clinic run by Mattie, an inspiring lawyer who fights for poor people. Mattie has accepted that she'll never be rich and that her lawyering will stray into social work from time to time. She knows the people need her, and that keeps her going.
Samantha learns a lot about coal mining and its adverse effects from Mattie's nephew Donovan, the only lawyer making any money in town. He's a trial lawyer who takes on the coal companies. Donovan explains how strip mining destroys mountains, poisons the water supply, and wreaks havoc on the locals. There was an incident where a boulder came down a hill and ran over a trailer with two young boys in it, killing both of them. On top of that, there's the issue of black lung.
Samantha longs for her life back in the City but is pulled in by Appalachia. The work is different. Before, she was buried in paperwork doing research, and here she is seeing the inside of a courtroom. She's working for clients she actually likes and cares about, rather than rich assholes trying to build ugly skyscrapers.
Of course, things get pretty exciting in the end, you're reading at breakneck speed, and you know it will make a hell of a movie. It's Grisham. But you also learn a hell of a lot about Appalachia and coal mining, and it's not even boring.
General consensus: Not the greatest literature ever written but glad I read it. Learned a lot.
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