Cash is such a good storyteller that even when he makes some mis-steps, I still enjoy the journey. In this novel, he tells the story of Ella May (a real person), a poor young woman from the mountains of Tennessee who finds herself leading efforts to organize an integrated labor union in North Carolina. In his Afterword, Cash notes the various connections he had to this little known piece of history but that he didn't learn about it until he was in graduate school. I admire Cash's desire to tell this story.

Much of the book is very good, but a few things didn't work for me. He includes a number of perspectives, so that the story is not just Ella's but also that of others involved. This works to good effect in some cases, but a couple of the perspectives were not full enough to move beyond the superfluous. He also, especially in the beginning, does a lot of "telling" and not enough "showing" about the mills and workers and their situation.

All in all, though, this was a good read.

4 stars ( )

This is my 3rd book from this author and my least favorite. The main character, Ella, seems to just be led by the nose by those with agendas and does not think about the true consequences of her decisions. It was clear she was doomed from early on. The story seems to go over a longer period of time than it really does. Some of the characters were thinly drawn and I didn't care about them. Don't really recommend this one. ( )

Historical fiction set mostly in 1929 in North Carolina where mill workers are trying to organize. They are striking for higher wages and better working conditions. They are opposed by mill owners and a group of local residents who associate unions with “Bolshevists.” Protagonist Ella May Wiggins is abandoned by her husband and joins the union movement after struggling to feed her children on nine dollars per seventy-hour work week. She works at one of the few racially integrated mills. She wants the union to include blacks in their ranks but is resisted by other mill workers.

The story is told from eight different perspectives in two timelines. It is based on the life of a real person. Ella Wiggins is a distant relative of the author. He had grown up in the same region of the American south but had not heard her story until he was in college.

It is a beautifully written, tragic story. The only downside, for me, is the eight perspectives. I found I was just getting into one person’s account, when the narrative shifts to something completely different. It does not flow as well as some, but it is a moving account and one I am glad to have read.
( )

Today is a tough day for me. I lost my sweet Fluffy, a cat who was more like my baby than my pet. He brightened my life for the last eighteen years, and I am at a loss to know what I am going to do without him. Additionally, I just came off a very hard and solemn read of A Fine Balance, so maybe the gloomy and foreboding book was not the best choice. So, I’m willing to concede that my timing might be part of what made this book never achieve the pinnacle it reaches for, but I think some of the credit goes to the writing and structure as well.

I was very interested in the premise of this book--it is based on a true story, and that alone lends it instant credibility. While I felt for Ella May, the human face of the efforts to unionize the mills in several small North Carolina mill towns, I never felt attached to her. There are books that make you feel you are inside another person’s skin, and ones that make you just an observer...the inside the skin books are always my favorites. I want to imagine I have walked a mile in that person’s shoes. I was always observing Ella May.

One of the things that did not work for me was the abrupt switch from chapter one, 1929 third-person Ella May, to chapter two, 2005 first-person Lily, her daughter. Of course, many people use this device, but here it seemed not to have any other purpose than to acquaint us with Ella May’s ultimate fate, and I felt that would have served better if revealed at its time in the story. It also broke the flow of the story for me, and I had a difficult time recommitting to the tale. It seemed particularly odd since Cash then resumes telling the story from the 1929 point of view and never reverts to Lily again until the final chapter, which serves as a kind of epilogue.

Undeniably, Ella May’s story is a sad one and she was an unbelievably brave woman. In her circumstances and with four children to consider, I’m sure I would have been one of those continuing to slave at the mill and hoping to just go under the radar. She put everything on the line to try and improve her circumstances and those of her children, and that can only elicit admiration from those of us at a safe remove.

What nags at me about the novel is that I felt I ought to love it, but I didn’t. It ought to have informed my understanding of the times and the place, but, again, it didn’t. I appreciate that this is a moment in history that deserves to be remembered and examined, I just never felt connected enough to anyone to feel I had been there or experienced any of the events portrayed.
( )

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. ( )