If you are looking for a novel with a happy ending, Wiley Cash's powerful The Last Ballad (#776) is not that book. Its characters and events are based on the 1929 Loray Mill strike in Gastonia, North Carolina. Ella May Wiggins, a dirt poor mother from the Tennessee mountains, was a central figure in that strike, stirring the textile workers with the protest songs she wrote. Needless to say, it did not end well for the real Ella May, as reflected here.
If you think you know everything about textile workers' strikes from watching Sally Field in Norma Ray, think again. It was even worse in the 1920s. Add on the racial tensions of the Jim Crow South and it's an explosive mixture.
Personally, I found the book extremely depressing, but so well written it was impossible to stop reading it. The desperate poverty described here was reality for so many living in the South. Was it better to join the Union to try to change things, risking everything, or to continue the status quo for a meager weekly pay envelope to feed your family?
The story leading up to Ella May's death in 1929 is told from a number of viewpoints, including her own. Each contributes its own piece to the mosaic of the time, place and attitudes. You might be surprised that it adds up to a picture of American history you never read about in school. Fortunately, Mr. Cash has shed new light on it.
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