GRAY MOUNTAIN - JOHN GRISHAM

GRAY MOUNTAIN

Gray Mountain - John Grisham

- John Grisham -

I'm a Grisham fan. You caught me. This book caught me too. I pick up every Grisham I see...at yard sales, thrift stores, and from that free take-a-book-leave-a-book shelf where I work. Through all those avenues I've managed to read almost every one of his books. I've loved them all. From The Client to Playing for Pizza. I think The Broker was my favourite. Anyway, getting off topic.

Gray Mountain. That pretty much describes the book:

Gray, as in a great neutral tone to paint a room. Not very bright, but not too dark. 

Mountain. A long climb where the trees get sparse and you get a great long view of things, but no details.

That's the book for you in metaphoric terms.

Gray Mountain - the title describes the book

A young lawyer is quasi-forced to volunteer at a legal aid clinic in the Appalachian mountains of West Virginia. Coal mining country. She helps a few sad poverty stricken clients, but she quickly escalates up the food chain and is part of cases that are suing the big bad coal companies for millions, perhaps billions of dollars. There are cover ups, bugged phones, murder, and some 'lovin' by the fireplace. All the makings of a page turning thriller...

I put the ... because I'm implying that the 'thriller' part never really took off. It was the gray tone and lack of details that caused this. Grisham takes a route with his writing that tells us all about how coal companies are stripping the land to mine coal, ruining beautiful country and leaving a desolate hill behind. How the coal companies, over the years, have done terrible things like take down the unions, covered up workers health problems like the dreaded black lung, and poisoned the water supply. 

This is all great info, interesting to read, but it took pages away character development, storyline details, etc. Unlike the mountains left over after the coal mines are through, the novel was not destroyed but it wasn't a typical Grisham thriller. This was no Runaway Jury or The Firm. Even my favourite part of thriller and action type books - when the characters are being tailed by spies - were rather lackluster in Gray Mountain.

The one high point, not counting the mountains (bad Dad joke), was that the main character was a woman. Smash that glass ceiling. Unfortunately, Samantha was a gray character. She was there, added some tone to the room, but wasn't a splash of colour. She was reluctant to do anything. It was a constant fight by the other characters to get her to do anything other than read contracts and do paper work. Yes, there was some character development, going from a shallow big city girl who only cared about making partner in a big law firm, to a lawyer that had a heart and wanted to help genuine good people (and even the environment). I didn't particularly like her, but I didn't not like her. I guess the best way to describe my feelings is that I hope Grisham doesn't make a series with her as the main character.

John Grisham tells BIG COAL to take a hike in Gray Mountain

This book will not make my library book shelf as a keeper. But, I didn't consider it a waste of time. It wasn't 'typical' Grisham, but that's okay with me. I like when people take a stand for something and that is what John was doing in this book. I've read a few other books about the poverty in the Appalachians, but also how resilient the folk are - like the book Rainbow Pie (see my review), and I always find them very interesting. Anyway, onto something completely different, a Richard Bachman (aka Stephen King) book...I've never read Bachman, so this should be interesting too. Oh, I love books.