By outward appearances, Anne Anderson is ready for Christmas. In one corner of her living room is a brightly decorated tree. Scattered throughout are figurines that might have gathered for the finale of A Christmas Carol. And attached to the side of a bookcase is a jolly drawing of Santa Claus. "Merry Christmas to all of the Andersons," reads the childish scrawl over Santa's head.
Anderson does the best she can to keep the Christmas alive for her two children and six grandchildren. But it's just about all she can bear.
The drawing of Santa Claus, you see, was the handiwork of her third and youngest child, Jimmy. He was diagnosed with leukemia in 1972, when he was three and a half. His illness was caused, she believes, by contaminated drinking water, poisoned by corporations that have never truly been brought to justice. In January 1981, just a few weeks after Christmas, Jimmy died. Years of painful, debilitating treatments, relapses, and crises were over. He was 12.
"Jimmy was a big boy, ten and a half pounds when he was born," Anderson says proudly, showing me a portrait of him as a toddler, before he got sick. Her kids are tall, and she figures Jimmy would've been the tallest, maybe six-foot-six, if it hadn't been for the chemo. If he hadn't died.
This particular Christmas, Anne Anderson's name is associated with the glamour of Hollywood. A Civil Action, the fictionalized movie about the lawsuit she and seven other Woburn families brought against the three companies they believed had polluted their water, opens in New York and Los Angeles on Christmas Day; the national rollout is on January 8. Disney's hype machine has been turned up to 10. The billboards and television ads are inescapable. A gala premiere will be held at Boston's Wang Theatre on January 6, with money to be raised for the Jimmy Fund and the Ronald McDonald House. John Travolta and Robert Duvall will be there. So will Kathleen Quinlan, who plays Anderson in the movie. So, in all likelihood, will Anderson, steeling herself against her ambivalence about the film and the best-selling book by Jonathan Harr on which it was based. And against the decidedly mixed feelings she has for the man Travolta is portraying: Jan Schlichtmann, the ego-driven lawyer who doggedly -- and unsuccessfully -- sought justice, riches, and fame on the families' behalf and, ultimately, at their expense.
There is, in fact, nothing glamorous about Anderson's life, or about the lives of the seven other families involved in the suit. Anderson continues to live in the small home where her children grew up, in a modest, middle-class section of Woburn. Now 62, she appears about 10 years younger. She dresses well and keeps a neat home; she still bristles at the description of her house, in Harr's book, as "dilapidated." She has friends, family, and a job she likes, running the law library at Woburn District Court. But the sadness is never far below the surface.
"I can't let myself go and really enjoy it," Anderson says of the buzz over the film. "The movie people have treated us with great sensitivity. But I can't get past the reason that all this happened, and it's still painful. I come home from some of these events and I'm just spent, because it costs me so much."
