Wastelands

Informationen zum Autor CORBAN ADDISON is the internationally best-selling author of four novels, A Walk Across the Sun , The Garden of Burning Sand , The Tears of Dark Water (winner of the inaugural Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize), and A Harvest of Thorns , all of which address some of today's most pressing human rights issues. An attorney, activist, and world traveler, he lives with his wife and children in Virginia. Klappentext "Beautifully written, impeccably researched, and told with the air of suspense that few writers can handle, Wastelands is a story I wish I had written." From the Foreword by John Grisham The once idyllic coastal plain of North Carolina is home to a close-knit, rural community that for more than a generation has battled the polluting practices of large-scale farming taking place in its own backyard. After years of frustration and futility, an impassioned cadre of local residents, led by a team of intrepid and dedicated lawyers, filed a lawsuit against one of the world's most powerful companiesand, miraculously, they won. As vivid and fast-paced as a thriller, Wastelands takes us into the heart of a legal battle over the future of America's farmland and into the lives of the people who found the courage to fight. There is Elsie Herring, the most outspoken of the neighbors, who has endured racial slurs and the threat of a restraining order to tell the story of the waste raining down on her rooftop from the hog operation next door. There is Don Webb, a larger-than-life hog farmer turned grassroots crusader, and Rick Dove, a riverkeeper and erstwhile military judge who has pioneered the use of aerial photography to document the scale of the pollution. There is Woodell McGowan, a quiet man whose quest to redeem his family's ancestral land encourages him to become a better neighbor, and Dr. Steve Wing, a groundbreaking epidemiologist whose work on the health effects of hog waste exposure translates the neighbors' stories into the argot of science. And there is Tom Butler, an environmental savant and hog industry insider whose whistleblowing testimony electrifies the jury. Fighting alongside them in the courtroom is Mona Lisa Wallace, who broke the gender barrier in her small southern town and built a storied legal career out of vanquishing corporate giants, and Mike Kaeske, whose trial skills are second to none. With journalistic rigor and a novelist's instinct for story, Corban Addison's Wastelands captures the inspiring struggle to bring a modern-day monopoly to its knees, to force a once-invincible corporation to change, and to preserve the rightsand restore the heritageof a long-suffering community. Leseprobe Chapter 1 Homeplace What is money when I have all the earth? ­George Washington Carver River Road, Wallace, North Carolina Summer 1958 On a five-­acre plot of sandy loam soil at the hem of a stand of pines lies a house built by hand a few years after the armistice that ended the First World War. The house is painted white, like a bridal veil, though in time the lady of the house, Beulah Stallings Herring, will paint it green and then pink, unlike any in the vicinity­perhaps in all of Duplin County. Not the flamboyant pink of lipstick or roses, nor the translucent pink of skin, but the spring pink of a dogwood flower. It is a modest dwelling, yet it was constructed to weather the years. Its siding is German Dutch and its bones are likely pine, though precise memory of the framing will soon perish with the builders. The focal point of the house is the porch. It encompasses the structure's entire front face, including the door. To the visitor it signals a welcome, an invitation to sit and stay awhile, to breathe the sweet country air and trace the shape of the clouds. Though it is solitary, the house ...

Autorentext
CORBAN ADDISON is the internationally best-selling author of four novels, A Walk Across the Sun, The Garden of Burning Sand, The Tears of Dark Water (winner of the inaugural Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize), and A Harvest of Thorns, all of which address some of today’s most pressing human rights issues. An attorney, activist, and world traveler, he lives with his wife and children in Virginia.

Klappentext

"Beautifully written, impeccably researched, and told with the air of suspense that few writers can handle, Wastelands is a story I wish I had written." —From the Foreword by John Grisham
 
The once idyllic coastal plain of North Carolina is home to a close-knit, rural community that for more than a generation has battled the polluting practices of large-scale farming taking place in its own backyard. After years of frustration and futility, an impassioned cadre of local residents, led by a team of intrepid and dedicated lawyers, filed a lawsuit against one of the world’s most powerful companies—and, miraculously, they won.

As vivid and fast-paced as a thriller, Wastelands takes us into the heart of a legal battle over the future of America’s farmland and into the lives of the people who found the courage to fight.

There is Elsie Herring, the most outspoken of the neighbors, who has endured racial slurs and the threat of a restraining order to tell the story of the waste raining down on her rooftop from the hog operation next door. There is Don Webb, a larger-than-life hog farmer turned grassroots crusader, and Rick Dove, a riverkeeper and erstwhile military judge who has pioneered the use of aerial photography to document the scale of the pollution. There is Woodell McGowan, a quiet man whose quest to redeem his family’s ancestral land encourages him to become a better neighbor, and Dr. Steve Wing, a groundbreaking epidemiologist whose work on the health effects of hog waste exposure translates the neighbors’ stories into the argot of science. And there is Tom Butler, an environmental savant and hog industry insider whose whistleblowing testimony electrifies the jury.

Fighting alongside them in the courtroom is Mona Lisa Wallace, who broke the gender barrier in her small southern town and built a storied legal career out of vanquishing corporate giants, and Mike Kaeske, whose trial skills are second to none.

With journalistic rigor and a novelist’s instinct for story, Corban Addison's Wastelands captures the inspiring struggle to bring a modern-day monopoly to its knees, to force a once-invincible corporation to change, and to preserve the rights—and restore the heritage—of a long-suffering community.

Leseprobe

Chapter 1

Homeplace

What is money when I have all the earth?

—­George Washington Carver

River Road, Wallace, North Carolina Summer 1958

On a five-­acre plot of sandy loam soil at the hem of a stand of pines lies a house built by hand a few years after the armistice that ended the First World War. The house is painted white, like a bridal veil, though in time the lady of the house, Beulah Stallings Herring, will paint it green and then pink, unlike any in the vicinity—­perhaps in all of Duplin County. Not the flamboyant pink of lipstick or roses, nor the translucent pink of skin, but the spring pink of a dogwood flower.

It is a modest dwelling, yet it was constructed to weather the years. Its siding is German Dutch and its bones are likely pine, though precise memory of the framing will soon perish with the builders. The focal point of the house is the porch. It encompasses the structure’s entire front face, including the door. To the visitor it signals a welcome, an invitation to sit and stay awhile, to breathe the sweet country air and trace the shape of the clouds.

Though it is solitary, the house is almost never alone. It is the birthplace of fifteen children, all born to Beulah Herring across a quarter of a century. Her first child was old enough to vote by th…