Scan barcode
A review by donnaeve
The Last Ballad by Wiley Cash
5.0
THE LAST BALLAD is set in my home state of North Carolina, and is a part of its history that was unknown to me.
Ella May Wiggins was the epitome of an unlikely hero. Dirt poor, she works hard to support her children - those that haven't already died from the whooping cough. As with many jobs back then, worker's rights weren't on the radar. Not even a blip. You were lucky to even have the job. You want it? You do? Then do as you're told, don't ask any questions, take what we pay you, and don't you dare miss any days, or show up late, not even if your child is deathly sick.
She works twelve hour days, six days a week, and brings home nine dollars, truly inadequate even for 1929. The job is at a mill in Bessemer City. When Ella gets called to the boss's office for having missed a night's work due to the sick child, she has a union leaflet already in her pocket, and her head is filled with possibilities. But, can she do it? Should she? What might happen? She knows in nearby Gastonia, workers had walked off the job at the Loray Mill to demand better pay, and working conditions. The governor called in the National Guard to quell the unrest, and workers were subjected to hostile treatment, like guns held to their heads, threatened and beaten. Still, union organizers persisted. They passed out leaflets with information about worker's rights.
Once she made the decision to attend a meeting, there was no turning back for her.
While this story is about Ella May Wiggins, Cash chose to also include other characters, and quite a bit of the book is from their perspective - but these chapters always somehow lead back to Ella May. It reminded me a little bit of how Elizabeth Strout wrote Olive Kitteridge, and Olive, Again, where one person, in this case, Olive, impacts the lives of many in one way or another, and this effect is coming from their perspective.
We get viewpoints from a mill owner's family, the McAdams, where Richard the father/husband takes pride in how he runs his operation, and how he treats his workers (and they do have better accommodations and he's installed electricity and running water in the mill homes where they live). His wife, Katherine, befriends Ella, while Ella can't understand how this rich lady would care at all for such as her. There's a character named Hampton Haywood, who works as a Pullman porter turned organizer, who provides a blistering inside look at what it meant to be a black man in 1929 in the South, along with a host of others.
Cash's prose is gorgeous, and some sentences I would go back and re-read. It's like when you first taste something that is so good, you want to keep eating. Reading his work is like that, and spoonful after spoonful, you never feel like you're full enough, which is why I can't wait for his next book, WHEN GHOSTS COME HOME, release date, September 21, 2021.
Ella May Wiggins was the epitome of an unlikely hero. Dirt poor, she works hard to support her children - those that haven't already died from the whooping cough. As with many jobs back then, worker's rights weren't on the radar. Not even a blip. You were lucky to even have the job. You want it? You do? Then do as you're told, don't ask any questions, take what we pay you, and don't you dare miss any days, or show up late, not even if your child is deathly sick.
She works twelve hour days, six days a week, and brings home nine dollars, truly inadequate even for 1929. The job is at a mill in Bessemer City. When Ella gets called to the boss's office for having missed a night's work due to the sick child, she has a union leaflet already in her pocket, and her head is filled with possibilities. But, can she do it? Should she? What might happen? She knows in nearby Gastonia, workers had walked off the job at the Loray Mill to demand better pay, and working conditions. The governor called in the National Guard to quell the unrest, and workers were subjected to hostile treatment, like guns held to their heads, threatened and beaten. Still, union organizers persisted. They passed out leaflets with information about worker's rights.
Once she made the decision to attend a meeting, there was no turning back for her.
While this story is about Ella May Wiggins, Cash chose to also include other characters, and quite a bit of the book is from their perspective - but these chapters always somehow lead back to Ella May. It reminded me a little bit of how Elizabeth Strout wrote Olive Kitteridge, and Olive, Again, where one person, in this case, Olive, impacts the lives of many in one way or another, and this effect is coming from their perspective.
We get viewpoints from a mill owner's family, the McAdams, where Richard the father/husband takes pride in how he runs his operation, and how he treats his workers (and they do have better accommodations and he's installed electricity and running water in the mill homes where they live). His wife, Katherine, befriends Ella, while Ella can't understand how this rich lady would care at all for such as her. There's a character named Hampton Haywood, who works as a Pullman porter turned organizer, who provides a blistering inside look at what it meant to be a black man in 1929 in the South, along with a host of others.
Cash's prose is gorgeous, and some sentences I would go back and re-read. It's like when you first taste something that is so good, you want to keep eating. Reading his work is like that, and spoonful after spoonful, you never feel like you're full enough, which is why I can't wait for his next book, WHEN GHOSTS COME HOME, release date, September 21, 2021.