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Book
Review: A Civil Action
Reviewed by Colin Hesse
A Civil Action, by Jonathan
Harr. Arrow Books, 1997 rrp $14.95
The subtitle of this glossy looking paperback says, "A True
Story". It also contains a list of notes and sources at the end. In every other way
though it reads just like the thriller it looks like. But where A Civil Action
differs from most of the pulp fiction that you can find at the local newsagency, is that
the story it tells is one which raises a great many questions about pollution, government
environmental regulation, scientific research, law and power.
Author Jonathan Harr tells the story of a small industrial town in USA.
During the late 60’s and into the 70’s an alarming number of childhood leukemia
cases develop over a short period of time in a small area of town. As one distressed
parent after another discover that their personal tragedies are not isolated cases, the
locals get the smell of something wrong; namely the water they drink. The water that
supplies their part of the town is from an aquifer sourced from an area which, it turns
out, is heavily contaminated with chemicals, particularly a solvent called
Trichloroethylene.
The bulk of the book is, however, taken up with the legal case, and
with the scientific investigation which ensues when the affected families sue the
companies they believe are responsible for the damage to their health. It came as a
revelation to me that so much scientific research is generated by the legal process. One
may also observe from the book that the adversarial processes of the legal system are not
the best way to investigate pollution and consequent health problems.
All up, the book, which is just on five hundred pages long, had the
television turned off early and this reader up past midnight for the couple of days it
took me to finish it. The author has structured his story well and the suspense is kept up
to the end. Most recommended to the activist who wants a good read, needs a reason to stay
vigilant, and wants to understand why you can never trust self regulation of industry.
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