From Publishers Weekly
Through vivid first-person reporting and a thorough culling of court transcripts, newspaper clippings and corporate reports, Vanity Fair contributing editor Shnayerson (The Killers Within) has crafted an incriminating indictment of the Appalachian King Coal industry in West Virginia, and of the man he defines as its rapacious kingpin, Massey Energy's CEO, Don Blankenship. The author's sympathies lie clearly with opponents of mountaintop mining, most prominently young attorney Joe Lovett and citizen activist Judy Bonds. Both have fought against a form of mining that shears off the tops of hills and dumps rubble into valleys and streams—a process abetted by the collusion of the state's often-lackadaisical Department of Environmental Protection, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' propensity to grant stream-destroying permits without oversight and the easing of environmental controls by the Bush administration. Shnayerson's compelling take on toxic mining methods and their heartrending impact on Appalachian inhabitants and their culture, has a wider focus than Erik Reece's 2006 title, Lost Mountain, which reported on one mountaintop's destruction, and strong echoes of the stomach-churning legal machinations recounted in Jonathan Harr's 1995 bestseller, A Civil Action.
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Review
Advance Praise for COAL RIVER:
“Michael Shnayerson has ventured into one of the roughest and remotest parts of America and emerged with a brilliant and devastating work on the greed of the coal mining industry. I found myself hoping that certain people named in this book will read it and experience that sick fear of knowing their game is about to come to an end. Indeed, that is one of the very satisfying things about this book: As horrifying as the story is, there is the real and very beautiful possibility that justice will prevail in the end.” —Sebastian Junger, author of The Perfect Storm
“This damning account of mountaintop beheading and rampant watershed destruction in four states of Appalachia should be obligatory reading for every Congressperson who deserves the name of lawmaker (and the lobby-led political hacks who claim it, too). Uncommonly well-written and well-researched, Coal River is an enthralling story of the few Americans courageous enough to ‘tell truth to power’ and oppose the crudest sort of environmental desecration and pollution for profit.” —Peter Matthiessen
“Coal River is the dismaying story of Armageddon in Appalachia. At one time the powerful forces of ignorance and greed are dooming America’s landscapes, our culture, and our democracy.” —Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
“The coal that generates our electricity and lights our homes also poisons our air. Along the Appalachians of West Virginia, as Michael Shnayerson shows in this heartbreaking book, the relentless quest for ever more coal has leveled ancient mountain tops, corrupted politicians, destroyed communities, and sickened their people. Forty-five years ago, in his classic Night Comes to the Cumberlands, Harry Caudill warned of this looming disaster. Now, in his equally powerful book, Shnayerson reveals the price all of us must pay for ignoring Caudill’s warning.” —Jason Epstein
