Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family & Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance, 272 pages

I started this book thinking I know Hillbillies and their experiences because I had my own grandmother called Mamaw.  My dad was the oldest of seven, and the only one of his siblings to leave North Carolina.  But I did not live the life that J.D. Vance experienced.  I wasn't even exposed to it when visiting my family in North Carolina.

This is a book about broken families and a broken society that our government isn't able to fix, and is perhaps, making worse.  It goes a long way to explaining how our new president got elected.

How do we make the American Dream real and attainable for all Americans?  How do we heal broken families and break the cycle of poverty, abuse and lack of education?  Until we find those answers as a country and society, I fear we will continue to be divided.

Gray Mountain by John Grisham, 384 pages

This is a John Grisham novel that deals with the issue of Mountain Top Removal coal mining.  If you are a fan of big business, don't read this book.  It will just irritate you.  On the other hand, if you don't mind considering that big business might deem their bottom line more important than say, the people living in the communities where they do business, then sit down and enjoy the story.

The year is 2008 and Samantha Kofer is a hotshot young lawyer working in the real estate department of a mega law firm in New York City.  Samantha loses her job as a result of the financial crash and is told if she interns for a non-profit agency for one year she will keep her health insurance and have the prospect of returning to the firm.  Samantha ends up working for Legal Aid in Brady, Virginia, deep in Appalachia.

There she learns that she can truly assist people in need and she's darned good in a courtroom.  She also gets involved in some pretty nasty business involving coal companies, environmental disasters and black lung disease.

My beef with this book is that many of the story lines were not resolved.  I hope that means that John Grisham will return to Samantha and Brady, Virginia in another book.

Gray Mountain by John Grisham 368 pages

In this, his latest book, John Grisham has taken on the strip mining companies and it is not pretty! Imagine, a pristine mountain in the Appalachians, colorful trees, lots of animals, just completely destroyed. The top sliced off to get to the vein of coal underneath. Trees, dirt, debris just pushed off into the valley. Workers' unions busted, miners dying because of too much coal dust in their lungs, their benefits denied. Rules are broken, regulations ignored, and communities divided. Bribes, corruption, you name it. Into this scenario lands Samantha Kofer. Samantha was born and bred to be a big time New York attorney. Both her parents are attorneys and she has been slaving away for several years now at a huge firm in New York. Then the bottom falls out and she is sent to a small village in the Appalachian Mountains to work pro bono at the Mountain Legal Aid Clinic. Samantha has never even been inside a court room, but she learns quickly that even small towns have their big secrets and litigations soon turns deadly. Will Samantha high tail in back to the big city or stick around to "help real people with real problems"? You will have to read to find the answer to that one!

King's Mountain: A Ballad Novel by Sharon McCrumb 326 pages

Sharon McCrumb is one of those authors on my must read list. Her books are most often set in Appalachia and this is a book in her "Ballad" series. The book is based on real events and real people (some of whom are McCrumb's ancestors.)

The book focuses on John Sevier, a father of eight, who lives in the North Carolina mountains. He and his neighbors have stayed out of the Revolutionary War as they are busy dealing with Indian raids, though they are Whigs, loyal to the Revolution. The "Overmountain Men" as they are called, are pulled into the war in 1780 when a British Army Major, Patrick Ferguson tells them to stay out of the fighting "or else." Well, that's fighting words for these folks. The militia soldiers who eventually meet up with Ferguson are from North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Virginia.

We also get glimpses into the life of Major Patrick Ferguson, a second son of a Scottish lord, and his two washer women, Virginia Paul and Virginia Sal.

Sharyn McCrumb, once again, tells a great story.