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Although fictitious, the story is loosely based on real people and events drawn from past environmental disasters, including the Love Canal site in Niagara Falls, New York and Sydney Tar Ponds in Canada. However, the Superfund is real; it is the US government’s program to clean up the country’s hazardous waste sites. The Superfund also allows for the relocation of residents who live in endangered areas.
From the opening page, we find ourselves in a lawyer’s office listening to Lois, a distraught woman who is beginning to relate to the nameless lawyer her family's experience of living in the Blank Creek subdivision, which was built on the former site of the Point Blank Chemical Corporation. Lois and others want to sue the company because of suffering caused by toxic waste left in the soil and water after the plant was torn down. The story is told from this vantage point, with the narrative following Lois’ recounting of these events to the lawyer. Some of the past events are told as a sort of “flashback,” written in present tense. But within the structure of the story, the reader always understands that these events are simply being related to the lawyer.
The narrative moves quickly, and one disturbing or tragic event after another in quick succession lead the innocent residents of the new community to conclude that something is very wrong with the environment in which they live. Suspicions become reality as people start to die as a result of toxic waste in the soil and water. The main antagonist, if there is one, is the realtor who sold the homes that were built over this poison patch of ground. She appears at convenient, although ironically coincidental, points in the story, just in time to witness another tragedy caused by her keeping secret the true history of the area. (Although the chemical plant was torn down only five years earlier, strangely, no one seems to know that it was there. Only after the determined Lois aggressively does research do the clueless residents learn the truth.)
My ebook comes in at 52 pages, which are divided into 18 short “chapters.” You can read the story in one sitting, and you probably will. It moves quickly, grabbing the attention of the reader and holding it until the end. There is no lull in the action. I was interested enough in the characters and story to want to know what was going to happen next. But this is an event-driven story, not a character-driven one. There is virtually no character development, save for the real estate agent. Even so, her character appears to have some contradictions, as she is sometimes portrayed as greedy, at other times unsympathetic, and at other times dishonest. While these traits are not mutually exclusive of one another, it’s difficult to get a bead on her real motivation for hiding the truth from her unsuspecting clients.
The description of the lawyer in the introductory paragraph is promising, and well-written. He is “a short, ugly, little man…His hair was dirty blonde and very messy. He looked as if he had just crawled out of bed.” His shirt is untucked on one side, and his skin is described as “creepy.” The aim seems to be to portray the stereotype of a sleazy lawyer. It’s not a bad start, but as we read the story it never becomes apparent why he is portrayed this way. He is never represented as a bad or dishonest person. Why he is initially described in such a negative way is unclear. Other characters, however, are not described in much detail aside from what they are wearing. The only other character given this kind of attention is a teacher at the local school. His head was “balanced on his shoulders like an ostrich egg. He had bony claw-like fingers like a turkey’s talons, and he was dressed in his trademark blue suit and red tie.” This is a fine description; why an ancillary character merits such a description is unclear, when even Lois’ children and husband are not described in such detail.
The timeline is hard to follow, probably because there is none. At one point Lois relates a conversation she had with her husband. She says it’s 1980. How long after this is she visiting the lawyer? Over what period of time did the tragic succession of events occur? We are never told. It seems that people in the neighborhood get sick and die in quick succession. Even if the neighborhood was built on a hazardous waste site, it’s hard to believe that it would have such a dire effect in such a short period of time. (At one point a small boy falls into the creek, and it seems that within a matter of minutes he is dead from toxic poisoning.) This is obviously a story with a message, but the seemingly unrealistic rapidity with which people get sick and die detracts from, rather than adds to, the weight of that message. It’s hard to look at it realistically.
There are barely any tears shed when one of the characters dies. The reactions of parents who lose their children are not at all realistic; we don't see them cry or grieve, they simply talk about how their suspicions regarding the toxic waste have been justified. Again, this is very much an event-driven story. If you’re looking for character development, and even consistent and realistic representation of characters, you won’t find it here.
I found only a few typos, and an odd idiosyncrasy with punctuation. After a line of quoted dialogue, a period is almost invariably used instead of a comma, and the next word begins with a capital letter. For example:
“…Right…so, start at the beginning, Lois.” The lawyer suggested, putting the document down on his desk.
“This isn’t about me.” The lawyer told her.
This is, of course, not correct. Many of these post-dialogue statements are not complete sentences, but the punctuation and capitalization indicate otherwise. Two or three times the punctuation in this kind of construction is correct, but the vast majority of instances are written this way.
The Superfund is mentioned a few times throughout the story, but it is not a main idea or theme at all. Why the book is entitled thus is a mystery to me.
Even though The Superfund is clearly a story with a message, it succeeds in not being too preachy. But I did find it hard to swallow that all of the tragic events related therein happened in such a short period of time. This is how it appears, at any rate. Inclusion of dates, months, years, or how much time elapsed between these unfortunate occurrences would have been helpful. The absence of any timeline at all makes it difficult to put the story in any sort of context. Actions and reactions of characters are at times unrealistic and inconsistent. But this story may raise the reader’s awareness of the dangers and scope of hazardous waste sites, and that, I suppose, is the primary goal. I can’t give this 2.5 stars, so I rate it 3 out of 4 stars, since it is reasonably well-written and will hold your interest from start to finish.
***
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