"Little Pink House: A True Story of Defiance and Courage"
(Grand Central Publishing) by Jeff Benedict
The court case was Kelo v. City of New London, and the heroine of the story is the redheaded lead plaintiff, Susette Kelo, who bought the pink cottage of the title as a means of escaping an unhappy marriage.
On a notepad after the closing, she wrote: "I know I have never been happier in my life than I am now, sitting on the porch rocker watching the water go by."
Jeff Benedict, an investigative journalist and author, uses journals, e-mails and other personal documents as well as court transcripts and interviews to present a detailed behind-the-scenes account of the battle over Kelo's and several neighbors' property, after officials of economically struggling New London determine that it had to be razed.
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Her pink house is still standing — but moved and erected elsewhere in town as a monument to the bulldozed neighborhood's lost cause. Another monument that Benedict points out: More than 40 states' legislatures have rewritten their eminent domain laws to prevent a repetition of the Kelo case.
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