Books : An Unreasonable Woman: A True Story of Shrimpers, Politicos, Polluters, and the Fight for Seadrift, Texas
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 639.58092
EAN: 9781931498883
Edition: 1st Printing
ISBN: 1931498881
Label: Chelsea Green Publishing Company
Manufacturer: Chelsea Green Publishing Company
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 400
Publication Date: September 15, 2005
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing Company
Studio: Chelsea Green Publishing Company
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
The gripping true story of one womanÂ’s fight to save her town and her way of life from deadly industrial chemicals.
Diane Wilson, fourth-generation shrimp-boat captain and mother of five, proves that one "ordinary" woman can force a giant chemical company to change its ways. When Wilson learns that she lives in the most polluted county in the United States, she launches a campaign against a multi-billion-dollar corporation that has been covering up spills, silencing workers, flouting the EPA, and dumping lethal ethylene dichloride and vinyl chloride into the bays along her beloved Texas Gulf Coast.
In an epic tale of bravery, Wilson takes her fight to the courts, to the gates of the chemical plant, and to the halls of power in Austin. Along the way she meets with scorn, bribery, character assassination, and even death threats. Finally, Wilson realizes that she must break the law to win justice: she resorts to nonviolent disobedience, direct action, and debilitating hunger strikes.
An Unreasonable Woman is a page-turner to rival stories like Erin Brockovich, Silkwood, and The China Syndrome. WilsonÂ’s vivid South Texas dialogue resides somewhere between Alice Walker and William Faulkner, and her dazzling prose brings to mind the magical realism of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, replete with dreams and prophesies.
This book heralds the arrival of a vital new literary voice, and introduces us to a daring, hopeful womenÂ’s activism that the times demand.
Average Rating: 
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I just loved this book and was sorry to see it end, and I am a discriminating reader. The story is so incredibly well told and so well written. There is drama, personal stories, great environmental information. I read some of the paragraphs, which flowed just like the tide at Seadrift, over and over again. She writes just like Texans talk and I just enjoyed it so much. She fights the good fight. Right ON!
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With the discovery that her "piddlin' little county on the Gulf Coast" led the nation in toxic emissions, Diane Wilson fought friends, family, local politicians, corrupt state regulators, legislators, senators, and the multi-billion dollar company Formosa Plastic. This leader of Taiwan's petrochemical industry had environmental practices so appalling that twenty thousand Taiwanese came out under threat of police violence to protest its proposed new $8 billion dollar complex. That's how Formosa decided ... Read More
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I found Diane's use of local dialect when "she" is talking, and standard prose elsewhere, a delightful aspect of this book. The local dialect is what one hears in the Texas Coast fishing communities, and it evokes an incredible feeling of time and place. The reader feels the salt spray right along with her.
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Diane Wilson is not only an unreasonable woman she is an outstanding human being. She is a reluctant hero, the most authentic kind. She eventually stands up for her native waters, mother earth and the very survival of the human race.
Doing something doesn't necessarily mean you can write well about it. In this case, Diane writes in her own authentic and electrifying voice. Her story rings true and reads like the most exciting fiction. I recommend this book to anyone who loves nature, adventure ... Read More
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What a pleasure to read this story of an amazing and heroic woman, giving it all to take down giants. Ms Wilson's Marquez-like writing style and choice of words leaves me breathless and imagining I'm there with her as her mission lays itself at her feet and she picks it up and takes it on. Bravo! An absolutely wonderful read.
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