Sunday, January 14, 2024

Fault Lines, by Nora Shalaway Carpenter

Viv has a reputation in her small West Virginia town of being difficult and unfriendly.  But while she's carrying a grudge against some of her peers, her real anger is directed against the fracking and pipeline companies that are tearing up the area.  When her hunting stand literally explodes from under her, she knows that the culprit is the local fracking operation, although she can't prove it.  So when she finds out that her Dad is about to cave in and sell land rights to a pipeline company, she becomes determined to take the company down.

Dex and his mother have recently moved to the area so Mom can work on the pipelines.  Drowning in medical bills, this is the first real job that she's had in years.  So while Dex isn't entirely unfamiliar with the environmental damage that fracking causes, his family has different priorities.  In any case, what happens here is of little concern to him.  He's signing up for the Army.  His mother doesn't approve, but he knows that serving will get him out of his mom's hair, give him an income, and send him to college.

The two of them, in sum, should have no reason to connect.  Viv hates what Dex's mom does for a living.  Dex, with his eyes set on the Army, has already checked out.  But as two outsiders, they become attracted to each other and eventually form an alliance to stand up for themselves and their beliefs.

Despite the attention paid to the environmental devastation being caused in West Virginia (and the author's loving depictions of the natural beauty of Appalachia), this is not solely a screed for environmentalism.  Rather, it is a tale of two young people emerging from their shells.  Viv and Dex both come from families dealing with loss (Viv's mother is dead and Dex's father is a struggling alcoholic whom was kicked out of the house).  As a result, their single-parent households fail to provide much of a role model for moving forward.  That they each do so is ultimately quite satisfying.

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