"Castaway Mountain," also published under the title "Mountain Tales," by Saumya Roy is a smooth, easy to read piece of long-term reportage. Over the course of several years, Roy introduces readers to two families that make their living by recycling trash at a municipal dump in Mumbai and a tangential court case to close it.

Roy is an outsider to these families. She met them during her and her father's failed attempts to create a micro-loan scheme near the mountains, the term used to refer to the dump. The writing is wonderful. Even though the families and people who work in the dump deserve our sympathy, Roy presents their stories in a very matter-of-fact way. She describes their constant struggles as well as their victories, such as making additions to their squatter settlement homes, fixing cell phones, having tea amidst the trash while waiting for the next garbage truck, or celebrating a wedding.

At the heart of the story is Farzana. She comes of age during the book and is drawn magnetically to the dump time and time again, as are most of the people in the settlement. Because toxic gasses collect around the mountains, a local man sues the city over the course of nearly a decade to shut it down. Their only means of making money are with the trash, so the recyclers are worried about losing their livelihood. However, India's slow and plodding legal system, which Roy describes in passing so as not to bog the reader down, means the residents continue recycling, albeit under the threat of beatings if they don't bribe guards.

I have never visited India nor do I think I will ever have that pleasure, but I have read numerous books of fiction by modern Indian writers. Roy's writing confirms what many of them write about - that as the country's cities grow exponentially, entire classes of people are left out.

The book includes a map of Mumbai and a list of the people dozens of people Roy writes about. Because her writing was so clear, both the map and list were unnecessary.

"Castaway Mountain" is excellent. Roy makes no judgments about religion, ways of life, urban development, medical care in India, politics, or even the waste we send to dumps, although surely she had room and credence to make such cases. Instead, Roy takes readers by the hand into a mostly unseen part of the world. ( )