Heat and Light

Forty years ago, Bakerton coal fueled the country. Then the mines closed, and the town wore away like a bar of soap. Now Bakerton has been granted a surprise third act: it sits squarely atop the Marcellus Shale, a massive deposit of natural gas. To drill or not to drill? Prison guard Rich Devlin leases his mineral rights to finance his dream of farming. He doesn t count on the truck traffic and nonstop noise, his brother s skepticism or the paranoia of his wife, Shelby. Meanwhile his neighbors, organic dairy farmers Mack and Rena, hold out against the drilling until a passionate environmental activist disrupts their lives.Told through a cast of characters whose lives are increasingly bound by the opposing interests that underpin the national debate, Heat and Light depicts a community blessed and cursed by its natural resources. This is a dispatch from a forgotten America a work of searing moral