Wastelands

<b>Beautifully written impeccably researched and told with the air of suspense that few writers can handle <i>Wastelands</i> is a story I wish I had written. &#151;From the Foreword by John</b> <b>Grisham</b><br> &#160;<br>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&#146;s most powerful companies&#151;and miraculously they won.<br><br> As vivid and fast-paced as a thriller <i>Wastelands </i>takes us into the heart of a legal battle over the future of America&#146;s farmland and into the lives of the people who found the courage to fight.<br><br>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&#146;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&#146; stories into the argot of science. And there is Tom Butler an environmental savant and hog industry insider whose whistleblowing testimony electrifies the jury.<br><br>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. <br><br>With journalistic rigor and a novelist&#146;s instinct for story Corban Addison's <i>Wastelands</i> 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&#151;and restore the heritage&#151;of a long-suffering community.