Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, October 30, 1994 TAG: 9411260006
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BETH MACY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
More importantly, she says, "I hope the book encourages people to stand up and be counted. To get up at 6 in the morning with snow on the ground and go freeze your a-- off ... you've got to be dedicated because 200 years ago somebody else was dedicated.
"The whole concept of being an American citizen is having the right to say no."
And did Schroeder pull it off? Did she capture the real-life sentiments behind the Selma citizens' fight to close the stinking, leaking landfill that still scars the Alleghany County mountainside?
To answer that question, we over-nighted an advance copy of the book this week to Gordon, who agreed to stay up all night critiquing it for us. Her review:
"I think she made her point," Gordon says. "What Joan did took great insight and great effort, and I hope everybody in Alleghany County, if they don't fork out the money to buy it, will at least read the book.
"And you know what I hope even more? I hope somebody sends a copy to the governor."
An ABC store clerk, Gordon says the book gave her a new respect for fiction, which she normally doesn't like - "because I like reality."
There was no shortage of real-life details in "Solitary Places," though - especially for the landfill opponents. Among the similarities:
Schroeder's scene where the national TV crew swoops in for a story, painting the citizen's group as uneducated rednecks. "They did do that! They even had that stupid banjo music in the background. They went into our backyards and filmed dirty dog houses and all the things that everybody has, but nobody puts on their front porch."
Schroeder's description of leachate as "filth from the devil's kitchen": "I never thought of that before, but it's perfect. That's exactly what it is."
The writer's characters: "In the book, relationships were born, fell apart, lives were changed; that all happened." Gordon wishes the group could have shown more of Reba's drive and more of Sarah's passion.
"God, I wish there'd have been a Lucy. I wish everybody on the earth had a wise person like Lucy in their lives because I think the earth would be a better place."
The plot: Although one protester was killed in the book, no one was in reality. But the group's shanty, from which they recorded the comings and goings of the trash-haulers, was burned down both in truth and fiction.
"In reality and in the book, we were ignored by the state. That's the sad part, and I think it's good that she showed it." One scene in particular hit home: "We did stand up and call the guy from the Department of Solid Waste Management a liar to his face."
In hindsight, Gordon wishes the group had been even more radical. She wishes they had lain down in the road, barring the garbage trucks from entering, as the characters in the book did.
"If I had it to do again, I wouldn't be so politically correct," she says. "I'd have blown up the damn bridge" where the trucks crossed to get to the landfill.
"I kept reading things and saying, `Damn! I wish we'd have done that,''' Gordon says. "But that's kinda how it happens in the movies. Most of our people might be children of the '60s, but they're not any more.
"I'm sure all the old people in the cemetery are rolling in their graves," Gordon says. And then sounding a bit like Reba, she adds: "Of course that's not hard when it's soaked with leachate."
by CNB