The Last Ballad: A Novel
Autor Wiley Cashen Paperback – 2 oct 2017
Ritmul romanului The Last Ballad este unul stratificat și contemplativ, asemeni unei balade populare care se dezvăluie treptat, cu o gravitate ce onorează sacrificiile trecutului. Apreciem modul în care Wiley Cash reușește să transforme datele de arhivă ale mișcării sindicale din 1929 într-o experiență profund umană, ancorată în praful și zgomotul fabricilor textile din Carolina de Nord. Nu este doar o cronică istorică, ci o explorare a demnității umane în fața unei opresiuni sistemice.
Ne-a atras atenția perspectiva Ellei May Wiggins, o mamă care muncește în tura de noapte pentru a-și ține copiii în viață, într-o lume unde drepturile muncitorilor sunt privite ca o amenințare la adresa ordinii sociale. Cititorul care a apreciat realismul social și lupta pentru supraviețuire din To Make My Bread de Grace Lumpkin va găsi aici o tematică similară — tranziția dureroasă spre industrializare și lipsa unei plase de siguranță — dar într-un context diferit, mult mai personalizat prin prisma maternității și a consecințelor transgeneraționale.
Suntem de părere că această lucrare reprezintă o evoluție în opera autorului; dacă în debutul său, A Land More Kind Than Home, Wiley Cash explora tensiunile dintr-o comunitate mică prin prisma unui thriller literar, în The Last Ballad el extinde cadrul, menținând însă acea sensibilitate lirică și atașamentul față de peisajul apalaș. Structura narativă, care include mărturia fiicei Ellei peste decenii, oferă cărții o profunzime melancolică, transformând un conflict de muncă uitat într-o meditație despre curaj și moștenire morală.
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Specificații
ISBN-10: 0062670735
Pagini: 592
Dimensiuni: 152 x 229 x 30 mm
Greutate: 0.6 kg
Ediția:Text mare
Editura: HarperCollins Publishers
Colecția HarperLargePrint
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De ce să citești această carte
Recomandăm această carte celor care caută o lectură istorică solidă, care nu se mulțumește doar cu relatarea faptelor, ci caută să redea vocea celor uitați. Cititorul va câștiga o perspectivă emoționantă asupra începuturilor mișcărilor sindicale americane și va descoperi o eroină reală a cărei luptă pentru drepturi de bază rămâne surprinzător de relevantă. Este un omagiu adus curajului individual în fața nedreptății colective.
Despre autor
Wiley Cash este un autor premiat, cunoscut pentru romanele sale care explorează adâncimile sudului american. Originar din Carolina de Nord, Cash deține o capacitate rară de a capta dialectul și atmosfera regiunii Apalași, elemente prezente și în lucrările sale anterioare, precum This Dark Road to Mercy sau debutul său de succes A Land More Kind Than Home. Este profesor în cadrul programului de scriere creativă la Southern New Hampshire University și a beneficiat de rezidențe prestigioase la Yaddo și The MacDowell Colony, experiențe care i-au șlefuit stilul narativ onest și poetic.
Descriere scurtă
Named a Best Book of 2017 by the Chicago Public Library and the American Library Association
“Wiley Cash reveals the dignity and humanity of people asking for a fair shot in an unfair world.”
- Christina Baker Kline, author of A Piece of the World and Orphan Train
The New York Times bestselling author of the celebrated A Land More Kind Than Home and This Dark Road to Mercy returns with this eagerly awaited new novel, set in the Appalachian foothills of North Carolina in 1929 and inspired by actual events. The chronicle of an ordinary woman’s struggle for dignity and her rights in a textile mill, The Last Ballad is a moving tale of courage in the face of oppression and injustice, with the emotional power of Ron Rash’s Serena, Dennis Lehane’s The Given Day, and the unforgettable films Norma Rae and Silkwood.
Twelve times a week, twenty-eight-year-old Ella May Wiggins makes the two-mile trek to and from her job on the night shift at American Mill No. 2 in Bessemer City, North Carolina. The insular community considers the mill’s owners—the newly arrived Goldberg brothers—white but not American and expects them to pay Ella May and other workers less because they toil alongside African Americans like Violet, Ella May’s best friend. While the dirty, hazardous job at the mill earns Ella May a paltry nine dollars for seventy-two hours of work each week, it’s the only opportunity she has. Her no-good husband, John, has run off again, and she must keep her four young children alive with whatever work she can find.
When the 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. On the night of the county’s biggest rally, Ella May, weighing the costs of her choice, makes up her mind to join the movement—a decision that will have lasting consequences for her children, her friends, her town—indeed all that she loves.
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. Illuminating the most painful corners of their history, she reveals, for the first time, the tragedy that befell Ella May after that fateful union meeting in 1929.
Intertwining myriad voices, Wiley Cash brings to life the heartbreak and bravery of the now forgotten struggle of the labor movement in early twentieth-century America—and pays tribute to the thousands of heroic women and men who risked their lives to win basic rights for all workers. Lyrical, heartbreaking, and haunting, this eloquent novel confirms Wiley Cash’s place among our nation’s finest writers.
Recenzii
“Wiley Cash reveals the dignity and humanity of people asking for a fair shot in an unfair world. Fraught with the turmoil of social change, The Last Ballad moves inexorably toward a devastating moment of reckoning. A timely and topical portrait of a community in crisis.” — Christina Baker Kline, author of A Piece of the World and Orphan Train
“Cash pulls no punches in this gorgeous, gut-wrenching novel, and that’s entirely as it should be for a story of desperate people. In an era when American workers are besieged as they haven’t been since the Great Depression, I can think of no more relevant novel for our times.” — Ben Fountain, Author of Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk on The Last Ballad
“Inspired by the events of an actual textile-mill strike in 1929, Cash creates a vivid picture of one woman’s desperation. . . . A heartbreaking and beautifully written look at the real people involved in the labor movement.” — Kirkus Reviews
“Told with grace and compassion, The Last Ballad is an enthralling narrative and a powerful reminder of the immense sacrifices made for workers in the United States.” — Shelf Awareness
“Elegantly and movingly woven ... The Last Ballad is simultaneously the evocation of an exemplary individual and the portrait of an era.” — The Guardian (UK)
“It’s impossible not to hear echoes of Steinbeck in Cash’s sprawling, multi-voiced account of a battered, hopeless woman who rises up to become the symbol of a movement… Ella May Wiggins, it seems, sings not only of the forgotten past, but for our time too.” — Chapter 16
“Beautifully and courageously told. Wiley Cash dares give voice to people lost in the margins of history, and he brings to life their inspiring fight for justice with graceful prose, honesty and intensity, and best of all, a wonderful bigness of heart.” — Lydia Peelle, author of The Midnight Cool on The Last Ballad
“This suspenseful, moving novel is a story of struggle and personal sacrifice for the greater good that will resonate with readers of John Steinbeck or Ron Rash.” — Publishers Weekly
“Beautifully and evocatively written, The Last Ballad should take a place on the honor roll of Southern fiction that will stand the test of time… Cash deftly builds the suspense and tension about what will happen, and why and when… One powerful and haunting story.” — Greensboro News & Record
“Cash honors his subjects… in his telling of their bravery at the forefront of societal and economic changes that would in time reshape our American lives. But Cash’s tale is foremost a cautionary one, a reminder of just how precarious liberties are… Heartrending.” — Charleston Post & Courier
“Resonates with pain, love, the struggle of life and the gross injustices of the world. I hated leaving Ella May’s world, reveled in watching her bravery against unspeakable odds and her unending support of racial equality… A riveting story.” — Louisiana Book News
“With his vibrant imagination, vigorous research, and his architectural skill in structuring this novel, Wiley Cash has lifted the events of the past into the present and immortalized a time that holds valuable lessons for our country today.” — Charlotte Observer
“Wiley Cash’s third novel is a sweeping, old-fashioned saga with an inspirational but ill-fated heroine at its center… Ella May is such a rich, sympathetic character… Powerful and moving, exploring complex historical issues that are still with us today.” — BookPage.com
“Here, a time and a place and a tragedy written about many times before is rendered anew in vivid, devastating detail. Cash’s tightly wound and heavily researched novel is all the more heartbreaking because these struggles remain so resonant today.” — Our State
“This is the very best kind of historical novel… Cash is a fine and subtle writer, who tells an American story … replete with personal, political, sexual, racial and class strife, yet redeemed by gritty individual and community faith in a better, fairer world.” — Minneapolis Star Tribune
Notă biografică
Wiley Cash is the New York Times bestselling author of A Land More Kind Than Home, the acclaimed This Dark Road to Mercy, and most recently The Last Ballad. He is a three-time winner of the SIBA Southern Book Prize, won the Conroy Legacy Award, was a finalist for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize and the Edgar Award for Best Novel, and has been nominated for many more. A native of North Carolina, he is the Alumni Author-in-Residence at the University of North Carolina Asheville. He lives in Wilmington, NC with his wife, photographer Mallory Cash, and their two daughters.
Descriere
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.