John grisham sycamore row review6/21/2023 The author does justice to the physical beauty of Appalachia and to the decency of most of its people, but his real subject is the suffering inflicted on those people by mining companies and politicians who pander to them. That opening scene, wherein a world of privilege abruptly vanishes for astonished young people who have known only success, is startling, but no more than Grisham’s portrait of the world of poverty and injustice that Samantha soon enters. Thus it is that Samantha finds herself at the Mountain Legal Aid Clinic in tiny Brady, Va., in the heart of Appalachia. If laid-off associates will agree to intern with a nonprofit agency, they can keep their health benefits and will be considered for rehiring if prosperity returns. We meet Samantha at the moment - “day ten after the fall of Lehman Brothers” - when the ax falls for her, with only one consolation offered. Or she did expect that, until September 2008, when the economy tanked and panicked law firms began ridding themselves of associates and partners. She works 100 hours a week, doing boring chores that she hates, but she’s earning $180,000 a year and expects to be a $2 million-a-year partner by age 35. At the start of “ Gray Mountain,” John Grisham’s angry and important new novel, Samantha Kofer - age 29, Washington native, graduate of Georgetown and Columbia Law - is a third-year associate at a huge New York law firm.
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