Zygmunt J. B. Plater's "The Snail Darter and the Dam," the movie

Now showing at My Book, The Movie: The Snail Darter and the Dam: How Pork-Barrel Politics Endangered a Little Fish and Killed a River by Zygmunt J. B. Plater.

The entry begins:

I had asked Jonathan Harr (A Civil Action; The Lost Caravaggio) to write the book about this dramatic fight between a little fish and a dam, between local citizens and national pork-barrel politics. But Harr said “No, you need to write it, because you were there,”… and, he said, “write it like a movie!”

So I did. If they make my book into a film, here’s who I’d like to play the lead roles—

Albert Davis [Tom Hanks] — a shy but powerful Tennessee farmer, a reluctant leader whose family farm is being condemned almost entirely for a corporate developer’s resale profits, not for the dammed lake; hesitant to talk, but when he describes what is being lost, even reporters cry.

Jean Ritchey [Sally...[read on]

Learn more about The Snail Darter and the Dam at the Yale University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: The Snail Darter and the Dam.

My Book, The Movie: The Snail Darter and the Dam.

--Marshal Zeringue