The Last Ballad
About this book
Inspired by actual events,
The Last Ballad is a moving tale of courage in the face of oppression, with all the emotional power of
Cold Mountain and
The Secret Scripture
'A powerful book that speaks to contemporary concerns through historical injustice. Cash vividly blends the archival with the imaginative.'
New York Times Book Review
For twenty-eight-year-old Ella May Wiggins life is tough. Her no-good husband, John, has run off again, and she must keep her four young children alive with the only work she can find, the night shift at American Mill No. 2 in Bessemer City, North Carolina
When union leaflets begin circulating, Ella May has a taste of hope, a yearning for the better life the organizers promise. But the mill owners, backed by other nefarious forces, claim the union is nothing but a front for the Bolshevik menace sweeping across Europe. To maintain their control, the owners will use every means in their power, including bloodshed, to prevent workers from banding together.
Seventy-five years later, Ella May's daughter Lilly, now an elderly woman, tells her nephew about his grandmother and the events that transformed their family forever.
Paying tribute to the thousands of heroic women and men who risked their lives to win basic rights for all workers,
The Last Ballad is lyrical, heartbreaking and haunting, and the novel which confirms Wiley Cash's place among America's finest writers.
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Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- Landing Page
- Title Page
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Chapter One: Ella May
- Chapter Two: Lilly Wiggins
- Chapter Three: Verchel Park
- Chapter Four: Ella May
- Chapter Five: Brother
- Chapter Six: Claire McAdam
- Chapter Seven: Richard McAdam
- Chapter Eight: Katherine McAdam
- Chapter Nine: Ella May
- Chapter Ten: Hampton Haywood
- Chapter Eleven: Albert Roach
- Chapter Twelve: Hampton Haywood
- Chapter Thirteen: Katherine McAdam
- Chapter Fourteen: Brother
- Chapter Fifteen: Ella May
- Chapter Sixteen: Brother
- Chapter Seventeen: Lilly Wiggins
- Afterword
- Further Reading
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Also by the Author
- Copyright
