Stand Up That Mountain: The Battle to Save One Small Community in the Wilderness Along the Appalachian Trail
"Suspenseful, inspiring, and sometimes funny...Leutze writes beautifully about his own love of nature and fierce loyalty to the region...enough to make you want to head for the mountains." --Raleigh News & Observer"Stand Up That Mountainis the story of that struggle, and it isn’t just a good book in a progressive, environmental, eat-your-vegetables kind of way. It’s a good book, period. Leutze’s style of literary reportage is in the tradition of narrative nonfiction like Jonathan Harr’sA Civil Action, all the way back to Truman Capote’s classicIn Cold Blood.” -Charlotte Observer“Jay Erskine Leutze makes memorable work. He is brilliant at portraying characters (heroes and villains alike) and depicting his stunning setting.” --Cleveland Plain Dealer"Deeply personal and reflective, and as much about his own future as about the mountain he loves, Leutze’s account, enormously compelling from start to finish, can serve as a guidebook for activists everywhere." -Booklist"Leutze’s affable narrative takes the scenic route, pausing to recount a piece of Avery County lore or to take in the panoramic vistas. Wide-eyed and instructive, the story carries the reader through the complex, occasionally riveting twists and turns of the American judicial system and strikingly depicts the region’s unique beauty." -Publishers Weekly,starred review“Even Jay Leutze could not possibly make these people up. From the brilliant Ashley Cook to the unmovable mine owner, Stand Up That Mountain is populated with riveting real characters from a world apart. Leutze lets us listen as they speak and tells their story —and his own —with an expert hand. He has given us a glimpse of Appalachia that is both heartbreaking and inspiring.”—Lee Smith, Best-selling author of Fair and Tender Ladies, The Last Girls, and On Agate Hill“Stand Up That Mountain is not just a page-turner, but a testament of how deeply place and community can instruct us. Jay Leutze, a naive young law-school graduate, living "intentionally" in the Southern Appalachian Mountains, has the modesty to be instructed by a mountain, by the Appalachian Trail, and by mountain people who lead him with hillbilly humor and unstoppable ardor in a fight to save their homes. Gentle, funny, affectionate, smart, and self-effacing, Jay Leutze leads us gingerly through a tangle of lawsuits and small-town run-ins that would have delighted Faulkner, to a dramatic and surprising end.”—Gretel Ehrlich“Jay Erskine Leutze has long been a passionate defender of the priceless natural resources of the Southern Appalachian Mountains. His love of those mountains and the small communities they harbor has found expression in many ways, including the permanent protection of thousands of acres of land. In the case of the Putnam Mine, Jay also demonstrated his pit-bull tenacity in the face of seemingly impossible odds. All those who appreciate these mountains, both residents and visitors alike, including the many thousands each year who traverse that area along the Appalachian Trail, owe Jay a debt of gratitude for his unswerving defense of those all-too-fragile mountain landscapes.”—David N. Startzell, Former Executive Director, Appalachian Trail Conservancy“Starting with a phone call from a neighbor, Jay Erskine Leutze describes an epic fight to save the landscape from utter destruction. Telling the story through the characters in his Appalachian community, he brings the mountain people alive with their speech, history, and values. As the group takes their case from the county to the state’s highest court, Stand Up That Mountain celebrates the power of grass roots political action in America at a time when grass roots efforts are essential to protect our land.”—John H. Adams, Founding Director, Natural Resources Defense Council and Chairman, Open Space Institute