More than 40 people attended an emotional and high-energy book launch for Franklin writer Jared Sullivan's debut, Valley So Low, at Landmark Booksellers.
Author Jared Sullivan speaks about Valley So Low at Landmark Booksellers.
The book is published by Alfred A. Knopf and is a nonfiction that mostly follows personal injury lawyer Jim Scott from Kingston, Tenn. as he represents workers who have fallen ill due to toxins created by power plant coal sludge. The sludge is contained behind an earthen embankment until it breaks in 2008, three days before Christmas. In addition to claiming more than 50 of the workers' lives who inhaled the toxins, the wave of sludge covers 300 acres, damages 30 homes and costs more than one billion dollars to clean.
"This book is journalism told in a literary way," Sullivan said. "It's the art of the real. That's what I tried to do: marry literature and fact."
At the launch, Sullivan read from Valley So Low and answered questions from the crowd. He spoke about the challenges of writing the book. It took Sullivan five years to write it.
"I was not fun those years," he said. "I missed a lot of weekends and had a lot of late nights. It was just a matter of sitting down at my computer and doing it."
Sullivan said the book was meticulously fact-checked, referenced, and researched. He sent the Tennessee Valley Authority, a federally-owned electric utility corporation featured recurrently in the book, a 25-page memo of fact-checking queries.
"They responded with their own 25 pages, saying I'm an idiot, that I don't know what I'm talking about and that I don't know what happened at that job site," he said. "They dispute the whole book. TVA didn't even respond point to point to my queries; they just said that they took issue with my understanding of the facts."
Sullivan also told those in attendance that while Valley So Low was critical of TVA, he believed the company should see changes, not dissolution.
"I don't want to burn TVA to the ground," Sullivan said. "It did a lot of good for a lot of people, and we still, to this day, benefit from TVA. I just think it's in need of serious reforms. It's made some huge missteps. They had an opportunity to build these great nuclear power plants. They planned to build seven of them, but they only finished three. That, to me, is an American tragedy. We could have had abundant clean energy in this region, but because of their missteps, they were super reliant on coal, and they couldn't get off of it. ... Publishing a very critical book of TVA like this, I hope it nudges them in the right direction to do good things that benefit all of us in Tennessee."
Sullivan’s family and friends came to the launch. Landmark Booksellers store owner Joel Tomlin reminisced about his time knowing Sullivan. He said he first met Sullivan as a teenager while he was searching for a Kurt Vonnegut book at the store.
“I told him that I did have some Vonnegut books, but I also introduced him to some other really great literature,” Tomlin said. “That started a friendship that lasted throughout his school years. He came in frequently, and I would help him pick out books. … He is a dear soul, and we are proud of his accomplishment.”
Sullivan noted his writing inspirations, spanning from Cormac McCarthy to Matthew Desmond, but said that his biggest help throughout the writing process was his wife, Caroline.
Valley So Low has recently received a positive review in the New York Times and a starred review on BookPage. Margaret Renkl, a Nashville-based New York Times columnist, called it a “brilliant and necessary book.”