Gray Mountain

Heart Of Darkness

While reading John Grisham’s latest bestselling legal thriller, Gray Mountain, set in America’s coal belt of the Appalachia Mountains, you have to remind yourself that you are not in Dhanbad, Bihar.  The way the big coal corporations destroy the land, exploit workers, use goon force to intimidate people, have politicians on their payroll and stop at nothing in their pursuit of profit is shocking, because it is taking place in the US, where the law is not as big an ass as it is in India. Grisham, however, disabuses you of that notion rather quickly. The only difference is that in India, there wouldn’t be a free legal aid centre to help poor miners in their fight against injustice.

When the book opens, bright and ambitious 29-year-old New York lawyer Samantha Kofer has her life on the fast track come to a screeching halt. In 2008, the US economy faced a crisis and ‘downsizing’ became the word of the day.  Samantha is axed too, but given a consolatory deal, if she agrees to work as an unpaid intern for a non-profit, she can keep her health benefits and when the conditions get better, have the chance of being rehired without loss of seniority. With several out of work lawyers on the streets, this is the best on offer.

With some misgivings, Samantha accepts and finds herself at the Mountain Legal Aid Clinic in a small town called Brady. Her new boss is Mattie Wyatt, who runs the clinic on courage, compassion and hope. Unlike Samantha’s well-heeled clients in her NY job, the people who come to the Clinic are poor and desperate.  There are cases of domestic violence and wrongful termination, but the biggest problem is the denial of benefit to miners who get the debilitating Black Lung disease after working in the coal mines for years.

The coal companies strip the mountains, pollute the air and water, and don’t care if people die in the process.  Initially, an outraged Samantha keeps spluttering, “This can’t be legal,” till she realises that the law can easily be manipulated by the powerful.

She meets the Gray Brothers—Donovan and Jeff—who, like their aunt Mattie, have made it their mission to fight the big coal corporations.  Samantha’s parents, both in the legal profession, are divorced, but willing to help her if she decides to return to New York to the city girl life that suits her. She tries to keep out of the battle, sure that she won’t be in this town for much longer, but she is drawn into it, and soon there’s no escape.  Mid-way an important character is killed, and Samantha becomes the only hope of the clients who have no other support.

The reader shares Samantha’s outrage, understands her reluctance and appreciates her idealism—Grisham has not made Samantha or any of the other characters larger-than-life, but they are all willing to make sacrifices for the people crushed by ruthless business conglomerates.

Gray Mountain is a hit  like all Grisham’s books, but this has an extra portion of rage, which is very welcome in these cynical times.

Gray Mountain

By John Grisham

Publisher: Doubleday

Pages: 384