The Cold Millions by Jess Walter

Spokane felt like the intersection of Frontier and Civilized, the final gasp of a thing before it turned into something else--the Last Rush Town, Gig called it, for the silver rushes in the foothills, but also the rush of railroad and bank, school and merchant, brick, stone, and steel, old-growth timber turned to pillared houses, hammer popping nonstop against the wild, a mad rush to log and pave the whole world.~ from The Cold Millions by Jess Walter

In 1909, the cold millions,"living and scraping and fighting and dying," with no chance in this world, are countered by the cold millionaires in their palatial, golden homes who dole out thousands to secure their privilege. 

Migrant workers sheltered in open fields as they drifted between cities, looking for work. The police cleared out the vagrants. The working men were lured by union organizers of the Industrial Workers of the World, promising to give workers a fair deal and a voice by taking power out of the hands of capitalist bosses.

The rise of unions was met with hostility, their leaders vilified as anarchists and revolutionaries who recruited discouraged workers into an expendable army. 

The rich didn't want to level the playing field. They sold the dream of opportunity, the chance to rise into wealth like they had.

Pull yourself up by your bootstraps originally meant to do the impossible. We hear about the few who started with nothing and built empires. And of the 1% who now control the bulk of money, many unconcerned about the cold millions who exist outside of the mythic American Dream.

Jess Walter's novel tells the story of Gig and Rye, sons of Irish immigrants who have died, the boys become migrant workers. Pawns in the system, they had to pay money for information on who is hiring; after a while they were fired and once again had to pay money for information on who is hiring...

Gig is a Wobblie. When Rye sees him arrested at a peaceful demonstration of unionists, he is moved to join the protest. East Coast union organizer Elizabeth Gurley Flynn arrives to raise money to hire Charles Darrow to defend Gig and the five hundred workers wrongfully imprisoned and inhumanly treated. Rye becomes a symbol--the sixteen-year-old orphan abused by the police.

Rye is also courted by the richest man in town, Lemuel Brand, to spy on Gurley. Brand hires Dalveaux to stop the next union meeting, rolling out a speech about the "dangers of socialism--East Coast agitators--immigrant filth--concerned mine owners and business leaders--real Americans--jail full of vermin--mayor's hands tied--in support of police--moral responsibility--commercial interests--future in balance--last stand of decency--". Rye and Gurley are to be stopped. 

One man to a boat. We all go over alone. The lesson comes early in the novel. Cops and killers, detectives and anarchists, wealthy men deciding everything in a back room, and Gurley--Rye knew them all. Each tried to be in charge of his own life. Rye outlasted them all, partly because of Gig's sacrifice, and partly because he found work and a family that took him in. Rye wasn't alone in the boat, after all. He was lucky. He won a few battles, and Gurley said that was all one could hope for in this life.

The Cold Millions is about the rise of the unions; it is historical fiction that makes past places and people come alive; it is a family drama that will tug at your heartstrings. The writing is fantastic. And best of all, it is a mirror flashing light on timeless social and personal conflicts.

I purchased a book.

I previously read and reviewed the author's novel Beautiful Ruins.

The Cold Millions
by Jess Walter
Harper, Collins
Published October, 2020

from the publisher

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Beautiful Ruins comes another “literary miracle” (NPR)—a propulsive, richly entertaining novel about two brothers swept up in the turbulent class warfare of the early twentieth century.

An intimate story of brotherhood, love, sacrifice,  and betrayal set against the panoramic backdrop of an early twentieth-century America that eerily echoes our own time, The Cold Millions offers a  kaleidoscopic portrait of a nation grappling with the chasm between rich and poor, between harsh realities and simple dreams.

The Dolans live by their wits, jumping freight trains and lining up for day work at crooked job agencies. While sixteen-year-old Rye yearns for a steady job and a home, his older brother, Gig, dreams of a better world, fighting alongside other union men for fair pay and decent treatment. Enter Ursula the Great, a vaudeville singer who performs with a live cougar and introduces the brothers to a far more dangerous creature: a mining magnate determined to keep his wealth and his hold on Ursula.

Dubious of Gig’s idealism, Rye finds himself drawn to a fearless nineteen-year-old activist and feminist named Elizabeth Gurley Flynn. But a storm is coming, threatening to overwhelm them all, and Rye will be forced to decide where he stands. Is it enough to win the occasional battle, even if you cannot win the war?

Featuring an unforgettable cast of cops and tramps, suffragists and socialists, madams and murderers, The Cold Millions is a tour de force from a “writer who has planted himself firmly in the first rank of American authors” (Boston Globe).

The Last Ballad by Wiley Cash

My first Wiley Cash novel will not be my last. Cash is a wonderful storyteller, entertaining while enlarging our knowledge. The story is compelling, the characters wonderfully drawn and real, the theme relevant.

The Last Ballad is the fictionalized story of the 1929 labor movement to unionize the mills of North Carolina. Ella May Wiggins struggles to provide for her family, working 12 hours a night, six days a week, for $9 a week. She lives in Stumptown, the black part of town, and her neighbor Violet is her friend and support.

Ella is drawn to the Union for the dream of a living wage, the ability to feed and clothe her children. The Northern organizers decide that Ella is the perfect 'face' for the local movement. Discovering that she sings and has written a ballad called The Mill Mother's Lament*, the organizers put Ella on the payroll.

Ella finds courage and discovers leadership skills. Her ballad brings her fame, and she goes on to write protest songs for the Union movement.

The mill workers go on strike. Joining the Union and going on strike is a hardship, and as known members of the community they are easily targeted. In 1929, unions were considered 'Red', socialist, communist, and most of all, anti-American. Ella complicates things--she wants to organize the African American mill workers into the movement. The Council attacks the platform of equality and laws against lynching, warning that the Union will destroy the Constitution, the church, and the justice system.

"We ask every man and woman in Gaston County to answer the following question: Will I allow these communists to gain control of Gaston County...? The time is at hand for every American to do his duty." Gaston Transom-Times, Thursday, April 4, 1929. From The Last Ballad

The union organizers are Northerners. Although their lives are threatened, they also can leave town when things get hot. Hampton, an African American Pullman porter, member of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and a Socialist, arrives to assist organizing the black workers. He is not trusted by the black community and is considered another 'outside agitator' by the  Council, a coalition of community leaders and police determined to squash the union. He is shocked to see the white mill workers living in dire poverty.

Ella works for the Loray Mill, whose owner is not an unjust man, although a clueless man who has never taken the time to question how things are. He thinks he does well by his mill workers and considers himself progressive. He is pressured to contribute funds to the Council. His wife, however, is compelled to understand. She befriends Ella without revealing her identity.

The Confederate Solders Reunion celebration in Charlotte on June 7, 1929 stirred the emotions of Albert Roach. Too young to have fought in WWI, he longs for valor and a chance to be important. He sees his chance to fight communism at home-- the Loray mill strikers. In a drunken rage, he violently lashes out in the crowd, which mostly consists of women, all become the enemy in his drunken and disordered mind.

The novel leads up to a thrilling and horrifying climax.

Cash brings us inside all the characters and sides of the story, so we understand how these characters came together on June 7 and its devastating events. I am grateful to have received a free book through Bookperk Page Turners.

*The Mill Mother's Lament

We leave our homes in the morning,
We kiss our children good-bye,
While we slave for the bosses,
Our children scream and cry.
And when we draw our money,
Our grocery bills to pay,
Not a cent to spend for clothing,
Not a cent to lay away.
And on that very evening
Our little son will say:
“I need some shoes, Mother,
And so does Sister May.”
How it grieves the heart of a mother,
You everyone must know.
But we can’t buy for our children,
Our wages are too low.
It is for our little children,
That seems to us so dear,
But for us nor them, dear workers,
The bosses do not care.
But understand, all workers,
Our union they do fear.
Let’s stand together, workers,
And have a union here.