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Coal Hollow, not a real place, is a construct from all too real places and people documented over several years in eight counties of West Virginia, our second largest coal producing state. Melanie Light's oral histories and Ken Light's black-and-white photography give us a documentary that goes far beyond the news to show the enduring damage coal mining has done to the people and environment of Appalachia. We should all note this degradation for, as Robert Reich, an economist, Professor of Public Policy and former U. S. secretary of labor, writes in his Foreword to Coal Hollow, "There is growing evidence that the survival of societies depends on how they treat their human and natural resources."
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