Gray Mountain

Gray Mountain by John Grisham

Reviewed by Gerti

“Gray Mountain” is the newest offering by famed legal writer John Grisham. It tells the tale of a well-educated New York lawyer named Samantha Kofer who is forced by downsizing at her huge law firm to head to the wilds of Virginia coal country. Her Wall Street law firm promises that if she works for free at a legal aid clinic for a year, her job may be waiting when she returns. So she does the only reasonable thing, and moves to Brady, Virginia.

Samantha whines a lot about missing life in Manhattan, but she manages to make a home for herself at the Mountain Legal Aid Clinic. It was not her first choice, but the other options for pro bono work have been filled by other “lucky” associates of her firm and others downsized by the 2008 recession. The clinic is run by Mattie Wyatt, life-long resident of Appalachia who knows firsthand the troubles of the region and the people who live there. The two become friends and Samantha learns how to be a real lawyer, preparing a lawsuit, going into a courtroom, and getting caught up in the human drama of the region.

One of the first people she meets in Brady is Donovan Gray, Mattie’s nephew and an appealing but unscrupulous local lawyer. His reason for living is fighting big coal companies devastating the landscape by strip mining, including the land his family owns at Gray Mountain. Donovan takes Sam up in his plane to show her what the mountain looks like after Big Coal is done with it, and it ain’t pretty. But just like she has fears of working for her father, who was a mass tort lawyer before getting disbarred, Sam has problems with Donovan’s do-anything-it-takes-to-win mentality. She finds out he has stolen incriminating documents from Krull Mining. When his private plane crashes and he is killed, the FBI swoops in to try to get them back, but the papers are hidden deep under Gray Mountain.

Sam eventually helps Donovan’s sexy brother Jeff get those papers to another law firm that has been working with Donovan to sue the company for delaying black lung cases. Donovan’s death also has another coal company dragging its feet over paying the million dollar settlement he got in a case against them right before he died – but it was only a handshake agreement and since the ladies can’t find anything in writing, the coal company reneges on the deal. Sam eventually agrees to take the case to the Virginia Supreme Court for Mattie, and in the process promises to stay around Brady for another year or two.

“Gray Mountain” really opened my eyes to the problems of the Appalachian region and the games coal companies play to keep deserving miners from government mandated settlement money once they get sick. Big coal companies find it more economical to fight the miners’ health claims than pay them, because the men are rarely rich enough to hire lawyers, and besides, they don’t live long with black lung. “Gray Mountain” has a fascinating cast of characters, an unusual plot and a female protagonist which make this an interesting read.