Published in 2014, Gray Mountain is the story of Samantha Kofer, a young attorney furloughed from a large New York law firm after the 2008 fall of Lehman Brothers set off an economic quake.
The terms of the furlough require Samantha to intern at a nonprofit organization for a year. After that, her position at the NY firm would be reassessed. It was, overall, a thin excuse to get the character into a legal aid clinic in the Appalachian Mountains of western Virginia. However, it was also a way to provide a contrast between the rushed and soulless life of the city, and a real and vastly slower existence in what should be the beautiful mountains.
"What should be" because the story quickly reaches its crux. The small town in which the story is set is located in coal country. Strip mining to be exact. It isn't long before Samantha meets Donovan Gray, an attorney bent on making coal companies pay for the damage they've done to the lives of the locals and to his life as well, even if he has to destroy himself to do it.
Big coal is, of course, painted as the bad guy. While I'm not thrilled about the damage strip mining does to the mountains I love, I quickly grew weary of all coal companies being painted as clandestine greed-driven thugs ready to threaten, harass, and kill for a lump of coal. But that was the conflict in this story and without it, many might toss aside Samantha's struggles to make the adjustment from life in the big city where she worked for a faceless law firm that showed as much loyalty to their associates as the coal companies showed to their miners, to serving as an attorney for small town folk unable to afford the legal services often needed in this life. Especially when their voice and pocketbook are so small, they're easily pushed around.
It's a shame, because the clients who walked through the doors of the legal aid clinic, their desperate needs, and Samantha's growing realization of her ability to help them despite her lack of courtroom experience were, for me, the most compelling aspect of Gray Mountain, and the reason I kept turning the page. Having met such people, I couldn't help but feel compassion for the characters and their circumstances. A feeling that stayed with me after I turned the last page. Because of that, Gray Mountain is likely one I'll read again someday.