For a nonfiction book in which names are not changed and so much dialogue is verbatim, A Civil Action, should be ranked as one of the best trial stories written in many years. Not only does it create suspense about winning or losing a court case, but it also presents a candid view of the weaknesses in our judicial system today.

The conflict is not really a new one. Several corporations are accused of polluting a small town's water supply. A number of Woburn, Massachusetts families believe the water is what caused many local children to die of leukemia.

Jan Schlichmann, a young Boston attorney, agrees with the Woburn townfolk and takes their case to court, against the advice of his associates. The trial and appeal drag on for years, and at the end of the story, Schlichmann finds the court expenses have left him penniless and over a million dollars in debt to his many creditors. After filing for bankruptcy, he leaves his law office and spends his "wilderness years" isolated in Hawaii.

But in Harr's factual account of such a complicated trial, Schlichmann becomes somewhat of a hero, and the corporate powers become villains. One reviewer likened this to a David vs. Goliath match. And even though no defamation of character(s) was intended in the story, the readers cannot help but notice several disturbing legal realities: the efforts of corporations to cover-up new evidence, the sacrifices attorneys make to reveal the truth, a judge's power to direct or misdirect a jury, and finally the many decisions the plaintiffs themselves must face in regard to their lost loved-ones.

Schlichmann was unprepared for these obstacles, so his good intentions, his honesty, and his perserverance were unrewarding. He suffered what to him was a humiliating defeat, much the same as prosecuting attoneys Marcia Clark and Christopher Darden did in the O. J. Simpson trial.

Jonathan Harr has written for The New Yorker and The New York Times Magazine, and this first book, A Civil Action, was awarded the National Book Critics Circle Award for nonfiction in 1995.