A novel for our era of "fracking frenzy"

Heat and Light
by Jennifer Haigh

fiction

430 pages

"Heat & Light is an exquisitely designed, semi-satirical social novel featuring a cast of at least 15 main characters. The central story revolves around fracking — the method by which natural gas trapped underground in shale rock is released through drilling and the injection of a high-pressure mixture of water, chemicals and sand.

The novel opens in 2010, when a salesman comes to town representing a Texas company called Dark Elephant Energy. In simple two-minute pitches, the salesman offers farmers around Bakerton a sweet deal, whereby Dark Elephant leases their land, drills into what he calls "Nature's safe-deposit box" and releases the treasure of natural gas. He claims the drill will run so far beneath the land that farming can go on as usual. In return, the farmers get a leasing bonus up front and a percentage of future profits.

Who would say no to such easy money, right? But the regrets skyrocket a couple of years later, after the tap water gets funky and residents begin suffering from rashes and boils, memory loss and miscarriages.

After the natural gas boom goes bust and Dark Elephant drill workers (some of whom we've gotten to know) are laid off and stiffed on their last paycheck; after the old hardwood forests are cut down and muddy clearings "the size of ... shopping mall[s] are carved out" — that's when most folks in Bakerton realize they've been royally fracked.

...

In Heat & Light, Haigh succeeds in making rural Pennsylvania — its land and people — plenty fascinating. Through the intimacy of her sweeping portrayal of Bakerton and the world beyond, she also compels readers to think about what we value and what possessions and dreams we sell off way too cheap."

http://www.npr.org/2016/05/10/477425129/a-dying-coal-town-falls-int...

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Permalink Reply by searcherone on May 10, 2016 at 5:21pm

KIRKUS REVIEW

Haigh, who wrote a morally complex, narrowly focused book about the hot-button issue of child molestation by Catholic priests in Faith (2011), takes a broader approach in this sprawling, thickly populated novel about fracking.

The setting is Bakerton, Pennsylvania, the fictional former mining town that was the subject of Haigh's elegiac affection in Baker’s Towers (2005). In 2010, the town is full of vacant storefronts and financially struggling citizens when “landmen” arrive and start convincing local landowners to sign leases with Dark Elephant Energy allowing the Houston company to dig for natural gas along the Marcellus Shale. Chief executive Kip Oliphant is a caricature of a glad-handing wheeler-dealer Texas tycoon, always looking for the “Next Big Play.” He’s too easy a villain, and neither his divorce woes nor his ridiculously nicknamed friends play as funny as they’re meant to. There’s even less humor in Bakerton. Prison guard Rich Devlin and his dissatisfied wife, Shelby, a neurotically protective mother, are one of the first to sign a lease—for too little money per acre, they soon learn. Then the digging noise begins to keep them awake, their water turns undrinkable, and their sickly daughter gets sicker (or does she?). Meanwhile at the organic dairy farm next door, lesbian partners Mack and Rena refuse to sign. Rena is soon drawn into the larger anti-fracking movement and finds herself dangerously attracted to a male activist. A supporting cast includes deadbeats, shysters, meth-heads, preachers, and assorted troubled neighbors and relatives, each given his or her moment center-stage. Haigh is as wonderful as ever at capturing emotional undercurrents—Rich’s backyard family barbecue is classic—but her humor is often flat-footed, her message obvious, and her tone preachy even for those in agreement.

This ambitious but flawed attempt at a 21st-century Dickensian novel shows how difficult it is to write convincing polemical fiction.

Pub Date: May 3rd, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-176329-8
Page count: 448pp
Publisher: Ecco/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 18th, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1st, 2016
And this is another review of this title which says it is not a very good one and  the last sentence means the book and author did not succeed in presenting its biased view.    By the way Kirkus is a book reviewing service that has been around serving libraries and book sellers since 1933 and is highly regarded by people making buying decisions in the library and book world.   Doesn't appear that this title was up to their high standards.
Permalink Reply by TreeMom on June 23, 2016 at 12:13am
I read this book. It took a little while to get into, but once I did I was glad I completed it. It tried to snow the Marcellus boom from all sides, and pointed out a few things we all know have happened. I thought the ending was fitting.

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