Few fiction writers understand the ripple effect that big industry can have on a community with as much depth and empathy as John Sayles. That’s been evident throughout his work, from Matewan, his 1987 film about a miners’ strike, to 2002’s Sunshine State, about a Florida island’s mixed response to real estate developers, to his gold rush-era epic novel A Moment in the Sun.
His latest novel, Yellow Earth, might be his most deeply felt work yet. Tracking the boom and bust of a shale oil development in North Dakota, Sayles puts us dead center in the tornado of activity that rips through a small town and a nearby Native American reservation—opening up the minutiae of drilling and fracking through the perspective of dozens of richly drawn characters who he seems to know as intimately as family.