Gray Mountain by John Grisham

Days ago I re-discovered in a pile of books an intriguing book by

John Grisham, Gray Mountain. I read the Italian version translated well.

I recently experienced problems. My internet connection is not working anymore from February, and I asked for some help at an association of consumers where attorneys don't ask at all for money for their legal assistance. 

If in Italy this one is a story involving rich and poor, in the USA these associations give coverage and legal assistance to the latest ones, the poorest people of the USA, the ones who could not ask for the help of a private attorney. The story of Gray Mountain is amazingly beauty and terrible.

I start to tell you that I was intrigued by the topic also because in a past existence I realized various interviews with people who worked in mines in a foreign country and they, in the while, fell sick because of their heavy work. 

This book was like a magnet to me. 

The story: 2008. Samatha works in New York. She earns  180.000 dollar per year plus bonuses, but unfortunately,  Lehman and Brothers's fall meant to her and her category, being fired without too many compliments. 

Substantially the company where she was working with, asked her, keeping alive her health insurance, a year somewhere else, working in the field of free legal assistance, for...free. 

Her dad, Marshall, I can't help myself but I like this character so badly, is happy because her daughter is now becoming a real attorney, so she will  experience what life means entering in contact with reality and real people and not just abstractions. 

Samantha doesn't know anything of real trials, real people, and need of real people, first of all. Her friends are rich, beauty, stunningly lucky, their places are rich, their bars trendy, their clothes elegant and rich. Samantha was born in a rich family, she studied in an exclusive university. She doesn't know that some people live pretty differently.  

Her world was wonderful. Apparently. 

She is accepted in West Virginia, where she starts to work assisting people in need but what Brady, the town where she affords in will mean to her is the discovery of  strip mining, the world connected with mines.

A shocking reportage and the fight of common people, risking personally a lot for trying to obtain justice against these big companies.

I found interesting the American legal system. 

I have friends and contacts in Pikeville, a little Kentuckian's town mentioned in this book. It was a pleasant surprise. Hi to everyone!

Read it, I know you will fall in love for it immediately.

Anna Maria Polidori