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    The Last Ballad: A Novel
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    The Last Ballad: A Novel
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    The Last Ballad: A Novel
    Ebook485 pages8 hours

    The Last Ballad: A Novel

    By Wiley Cash

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    Winner of the Southern Book Prize for Literary Fiction

    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.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateOct 3, 2017
    ISBN9780062313133
    Author

    Wiley Cash

    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.

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    Reviews for The Last Ballad

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    • 4/5
      This book is a fictionalized account of the 1929 Loray Mill Stike in Gastonia, North Carolina that resulted in bloodshed and the death of Ella May Wiggins a Union organizer. Cash uses different voices to tell the story from Ella May's herself to Lily Wiggins her daughter, to Vershel Park, who knew her in South Carolina when she worked at a mill there, to Brother a man who lived with the monks who helped the strikers, to Claire McAdam who met her in Washington D.C. while being escorted around by a Senator from North Carolina, to Richard McAdam her father a mill owner who worries about the strikers making a bad impression on his daughter's future in-laws who are visiting, to Katherine McAdam, wife of Richard, who makes friends with Ella, to Hampton Haywood, a black Union man from up North who has come down South to organize the blacks into the Union with Ella's help, to Albert Roach, a cop on suspension for bad behavior who doesn't know when to quit.Ella has four kids and a fifth one has died because she wasn't there to take care of it or had the money to get him proper medicine or a visit to the doctor. When the Union comes to Gaston County to Gastonia to help with the Loray Mill strike they are encouraging the other mills to strike by getting employees to join the Union. Ella, a singer, had written a song about working in the mill and the Union people asked her to speak before the crowd about her story and to sing her song. When she does she immediately becomes famous as "the singer".Ella wants to organize the blacks into the Union as does Sophia, the Northerner who recruited her into the Union wants to do. But the Union leader at the site, Richard Beal believes that they should wait until they get their demands met for the whites first before they bring in the blacks. Sophia wants to bring in a black Union man from up North to help Ella organize the blacks. Meanwhile, she is helping with the Loray strike and with the Union in general by going to D.C. to talk to the North Carolina Senator about their plight.This book is written in an interesting way as it's told from many different vantage points. You wind up with different viewpoints and ideas about what happened and why and who was to blame. You also get the viewpoint of a mill owner who runs a good mill and treats his mill workers fairly but finds himself tempted to join in with the bad mill owners in doing bad things because he is against the strikes because they make his town look bad. It also shows the viewpoints of his wife and daughter who are against his viewpoints because they sympathize with Ella. But you also see the viewpoint of Albert Roach one of the instigators and "bad guys" of the story and what motivated him. This can be jarring a bit and honestly, I wanted to read a book about Ella May and wound up with one about the South at this point of time. This book is very well written and takes a fascinating look at something that happened in history that was quickly hushed up as the author himself is from Gastonia and had never heard of it until he went to grad school in Louisiana. I'm glad the author chose to shed some light on this brave female who fought for others and died tragically in the process. I give this book four out of five stars.QuotesWhich of us is not forever a stranger and alone.-Thomas Wolfe (Look Homeward Angel)She’d decided that giving birth to a child is nothing but an invitation to losing it, and that was what she feared each time she’d heard the first newborn cry of one her children.-Wiley Cash (The Last Ballad p 122)“You’re young, hungry, smart. Don’t ruin it. Don’t encourage your brothers to ruin it.” “What are you saying?” Haywood asked. “I’m suggesting that you stick with whom and what you know.” “You’re telling me not to mix with white people,” Haywood said. “Not the ones who will get you killed. And, Mr. Haywood, there are many kinds of death.”-Wiley Cash (The Last Ballad p 261)There is an old saying that every story, even your own, is either happy or sad depending of where you stop telling it. I believe I’ll stop telling this one here.-Wiley Cash (The Last Ballad p 370)
    • 3/5
      The Last Ballad by Wiley Cash displayed a world that I had never noticed. The story centers in the rural area of Gaston County North Carolina around the mills and the people working in the mills. Ella May Wiggins works six days a week for a total of 72 hours at a job where she walks 2 miles to reach and only receives $9.00 for the whole week. With this pittance, she must support her growing family while living in a shack with three children in the black side of town. Wiley Cash pounds out a novel of hardship and misery, but Ella May stands as a beacon of determination in hopes of changing conditions for the mill workers as labor unions attempt to enter the picture. Wiley Cash portrays the characters and setting with dimension and not the flatness of a textbook. Ella May and her friends display boldness and humor. The Last Ballad stands as a glimpse into conditions in the 1920’s that still exist in the 21st Century.
    • 4/5
      The Last Ballad, Wiley CashWiley Cash has a way with words. He develops the characters so well that the reader walks alongside them as the book unfolds. living their experiences with them. This story has its base in the life of a real character, Ella May Wiggins, and coincidentally, Wiley Cash has relatives with the name, Wiggins, although they do not seem to be related.This is the story of the very short and sad life of Ella May Wiggins. Once a hillbilly, she moved with her husband John to North Carolina to work in the mills. She lived in Stumptown, a small black community in which she was the only white resident. She, like them, was dirt poor. Her life has not been easy. Her husband walked out on her and she had recently thrown out the no account man who was also the father of the child growing in her belly. She was taking care of all her children by herself. The four of them walked barefoot and were often hungry. They looked after each other while she was at work at the local textile mill.It is 1929 and Ella May worked at American Mill #2, owned and run by the Goldberg brothers. It was one of the few mills that was integrated. She was paid a paltry sum which barely put food on the table. When she was reprimanded for missing work because of a sick child, she decided to check out the textile worker’s union that was being organized by the Communist Party. Ella May lived from hand to mouth and was slowly growing desperate. At the union rally, encouraged by its organizers, she unexpectedly found herself singing her own songs and addressing the crowd. She was persuaded to join them in their effort to organize workers and to eventually take on a leadership role. She was also persuaded to try to integrate the union by encouraging her friends and neighbors to join her. It turned out to be a very dangerous endeavor. The world was not only anti-union and opposed to Communists, but integration of the unions was even more of a far-fetched effort.The textile workers were engaged in a poorly organized strike when she became involved. It had not been very effective. She became the face and inspiration of the movement. At first there was very little violence, but as time passed, racism and anti-Communist sentiments aroused more violent passions.The story of Ella May’s participation in the labor union struggle was related to her grandson Edwin by her daughter Lilly. It was the first time she was telling the whole story, about her mother’s brief life, to anyone at all. She was deep into her 80’s at the time she related this history to him. She had decided not to let the story of her mother’s heroism be forgotten. Each of the novel’s chapters featured a different character. Each described the relationship of that character to Ella May and her struggles. I found the novel inspiring and informative. I had not known that the Communist Party was involved in our labor union struggles and movement. Actually, my experience with unions was quite negative for two reasons. One was that the striking workers forced my father out of his small business. He lost everything. Two was that I objected to the unionization of teachers, and I still do. Somehow it made me and them less professional and more demanding, not always for the benefit of the children or for the improvement of the schools, but more for the benefit of themselves. A combination of all ideals would have been more preferable, but sometimes the better goals are lost in the shuffle. Still, the story makes the reader realize that unions were not only justified at one time, they were needed to level the playing field and provide better working conditions for all. The novel makes the reader very sympathetic to the plight of the overworked and abused employees, especially those of color who were not given any equality or respect. They were often humiliated by cruel white people, who felt superior to them, and today they still are in some places and in some circumstances. The danger, however, to me, is that the unions are subject to abuse because sometimes the members forget the purpose of the union, which is to improve conditions, and not necessarily to destroy a business, which is sometimes the ultimate end product when collective bargaining breaks down. A case in point is Stella D’oro.
    • 3/5
      THE LAST BALLAD is historical fiction about a poor female textile mill worker who one day in the 1920s walked off the job and joined the National Textile Workers Union. It is also about a certain one of their strikes in 1929 in North Carolina. The ex-mill worker was Ella May Wiggins, and that particular strike was the Loray Mill strike. These we know to be true because Wiley Cash says so in this “Afterword.”Historical fiction always has some truth to it. That’s what makes it so appealing. But what about THE LAST BALLAD is true other than what Cash writes in his “Afterword”? I wanted to believe, especially, in Richard McAdam, the enlightened but weak mill owner, and Hampton Haywood, the black Communist from the North. So I did some research, and it looks like these and the other characters in the book just aid the story and are straight from Cash’s imagination.Not only does Cash write well enough to make the reader want to believe his fiction; he also tells a balanced story. That is, for example, Ella is dirt poor, barely able to feed her children, but well-off Katherine McAdams wants to and does help her. Cash also shows both the good and bad characters in the police department and among the strikers.This is an interesting story of a little-known part of American history. It is not a happy book, though.I won this book through the JATHAN & HEATHER website.
    • 4/5
      The Last Ballad🍒🍒🍒🍒
      By Wiley Cash
      2017
      William Morrow

      The courage and heart of Ella Mae Wiggins, her insight and belief that all Mill workers deserve equal and fair pay and working conditions, free from discrimination is based on actual events of 1929, in North Carolina. Her heroic efforts inspired many to demand change and opportunity.
      The fight for justice, the honest and hard working life during this time of devastation and social change are moving and vivid. The desperation is felt. The slow pace of the book at first bothered me, but quickly became obvious and essential. This style helped make the book wonderful.
    • 4/5
      Wiley Cash description of Ella May looking at her hands will inspire many of us for a long time, as will the many bird images.Yes, The Last Ballad warrants the full 4 Stars; yet, unlike the previous reviewers, I experienced a couple of let downs.First, the introduction of characters Arthur and Tom and their whole boring awful episodes really slowed down the plot;so much that Ella's murder felt like a distant afterthought. Verchel and his little chair did not add to the plot.Next, the deepest character insights belonged to Richard McAdam, rather than to main characters Ella May and Hampton.Violet remained oddly understated and it was strange that neither she nor Hampton enlightened Ella May on the horrificfates of previous African Americans who had tried to unionize in the South. That knowledge could have deterred Ellafrom leading them into the confrontation that Beal had so accurately predicted and tried so hard to avoid.While the voice of Ella May as Mill Mother is singularly well done, it still does not realistically explain why, having been deserted by one husband and being unable to support her three kids without food from Violet's mother, she would take a chance on gettingpregnant with an obvious drifter. She knows that the loss of her tiny income would probably end this precarious family if shehad to take time to deliver and care for a baby. Yet, she goes ahead, then fairly drives the new man away by tossing his precious guitar.Claire and Donna add more distractions.And, it still seems odd that, on page 5, it states that John had left 2 years ago, then, on page 22, it says that it had been 5 years.
    • 5/5
      I have read all of Wiley Cash's books and I while I definitely enjoyed the first two, The Last Ballad, his third book, is definitely my favorite. The writing is so beautiful that I read the book slowly so I could savor his words. I felt like I was part of the action and could clearly see the scenes he set in this novel. The characters were so well done that I felt their pain as they worked to bring better pay and working conditions into the NC textile mills. This is a must read book about an early history of not only the labor movement but also the women's and civil rights movements in our country.My husband grew up in a NC mill village and his parents and grandparents before him all worked in textile mills. I used to hear family stories about working in the mills and often questioned how they felt about the mill owners. Without a pause, they all assured me that the owners were all part of the mill family and were doing their best for the workers. Coming from Detroit with a grandfather who was a union organizer in the 30s, I had trouble believing that the mill owner looked out for their best interests. This book was a real eye opener for me and answered a lot of questions that I had - why my husband's grandparents moved to the city from farming in Tennessee, why the textile mills stayed non union for so long and how the workers were treated in the mills. Beyond a personal interest in the story, I will tell you that this was one of the best, if not the best, book that I've read all year. The author's use of language is beautiful and helped create a beautiful, though violent, story. The main character Ella Mae Wiggins, who worked 72 hours a week for barely enough money to keep her children fed. Her husband has run off again and she is trying her best to keep her children fed and clothed even though it keeps her away from them for hours every day. When she sees a leaflet about the union, she decides to check it out to see if they can help provide her with a better life for her and her children and ends up as a crucial member of the drive to unionize the textile unions. The author uses a number of voices to tell the story but as they all come together at the end, the reader is left with sadness but more importantly, left with a feeling of pride and awe in Ella Mae Wiggins, a poor mill worker who tried to make a difference in her life and the lives of all of the other mill workers - both black and white - of the time.This is a beautiful book and I highly recommend. Not only was the book fantastic but it is based on real people and a real strike at Loray Mills in Gastonia, NC, in 1929 that seems to have been forgotten. There was a real Ella Mae Wiggins who was a mill worker that started working with the unions. Wiley Cash does a wonderful job of telling her story and the time she lived in. I highly recommend this book!
    • 3/5
      I have read other Wiley Cash books and thoroughly enjoyed them. I have heard him speak and even had dinner with him at a literary event. He writes beautifully and is clearly invested in the forgotten or hidden stories he tells of his native South. The Last Ballad, based on a true story, is a novel that he obviously holds close to his heart. Ironically though, despite his closeness to the subject matter, it is the least successful of his novels for me.It's 1929 and Ella May Wiggins is a single mother of five children (four living) who works in a textile mill in Bessemer City, NC. She earns $9 a week, which isn't really enough to feed and clothe herself and her children. Her alcoholic ex-husband up and left before her last baby was born and the man she's with now (and pregnant by) is almost as no-account as her disappeared husband. Ella May lives in Stumptown, in the Negro part of town, despite the fact that she and her children are white. The Wiggins family, like their black neighbors, live in grinding, desperate poverty. When Ella May is reprimanded for missing work to care for her very ill child, she decides that she will attend a meeting to see what unionization could mean to her and to her children. Despite her fear of losing her job and the only income she has, she agrees to join the movement. After singing a heart-rending ballad she's written about the mills and motherhood, she quickly becomes the local face for the union, trading her mill job for one within the union organization. But the local mill owners are not about to allow these communist unions into their mills without a fight, a truly horrible and violent fight if required. Ella May, being so publicly recognizable will be square in the cross hairs of those determined to keep the unions out no matter what.Mostly set in 1929 with two short portions in 2005, the novel is told from various characters' points of view. The multiplicity of characters, from Ella May to her daughter, from the wealthy wife of a mill owner to a violent sheriff's deputy, from a black activist to a broken man haunted by his past, and many more, shows the events of the novel from many different perspectives, highlighting the way that so many different people converged on Gaston County. This same multiplicity made it hard to follow the story as it switched from one person to another to another, sometimes quite far from the main plot thread. Eventually the threads all converged but until that point, the narrative structure gave it a choppy feel. While the history here is incredibly important to the story, it often drove the novel to the exclusion of the human story. History has covered the general story of unions and the conditions that led to them pretty thoroughly but the story of Ella May herself has faded into obscurity. Unfortunately, Ella May didn't quite come to life here either, portrayed as she was first as an unthinking pawn of the union and later as a martyr to their cause rather than the complete person she must have been. Her personal story, the things that made her more than just the singer, are sometimes told, not shown, in the novel but are almost never fully explored, lessening the emotional impact of this woman's life and her struggle. It must have taken heaps of courage to stand up for her children and herself, as well as for her black neighbors, who were not being welcomed into the union fold, but somehow this courage is only viewed at a far remove and not close and viscerally for the reader. I think perhaps the message overwhelmed the story here, which is a shame because there's quite a story to be told and usually Cash has the chops to pull it off. The writing itself is well done despite the stumbling block of the structure and the story is an important one, if incredibly bleak. Readers who like their fiction to confront injustice will still want to read this even if the emotional punch isn't quite there.
    • 4/5
      ( I hope to eventually receive a delayed Early Reviewers copy of this novel; I was able to check it out of the public library for now.) Wiley Cash has written this historical novel based on life and death of Ella May Wiggins. The real Ella was born in Tennessee in 1900 and was murdered at the age of 29 during her work with mill strikers. She lived a terribly difficult life and she lost 4 of her 9 children to whooping cough and pellegra. Poverty stricken, she was only paid $9 for a 72-hour work week in a South Carolina mill. She ended up joining a labor union and became a worker's rights advocate and civil rights leader, working to integrate the union with African American neighbors and co-workers. She was also a folk song writer and literally became a voice for organized labor. It's wonderful that Wiley Cash has brought this lost story to life. It's a fitting tribute to this remarkable woman.
    • 5/5
      Although Wiley Cash's newest novel, The Last Ballad, is set in 1929, the themes of the struggling working class, the politics of rich versus poor, racism and sexism are as relevant today as they were then.Young Ella May Wiggins is 28 years-old, a mother of four with a husband who deserts her. She works the night shift at the local textile mill, making less than $10 a week, which is not enough to feed her children.When Ella had to miss to a shift to care for sickly daughter she is called into the owner's office, accused of being lazy and threatened with dismissal by a man who shows no compassion for Ella's situation.Ella relies on nine-year-old daughter Lily and her friend and neighbor Violet to help care for the other younger children while she works. She is tired of not being paid enough for her work and when a union comes to town, Ella works up to the courage to attend a meeting.She meets two women who are driving people to the meeting, and when Ella sings them a song she wrote about her situation, they convince her to sing for the crowd. Ella's beautiful voice and song move the crowd so much that Ella becomes a symbol of the labor movement.Ella agrees to work for the union, and pushes for the union to include the black factory workers in their organization efforts. The factory where she works is one of the few that has black and white workers on the line.The factory owners accuse the workers of being Communists, and indeed it is the Communist party that helps to organize the labor movement. The workers are threatened with violence and forcibly evicted from their factory-owned homes when they dare to try and organize a union.The tension rachets up as the workers appear to be on a collison course with the factory owners. When a black union organizer, a Pullman porter named Hampton, comes to town to help Ella organize her neighbors, he is forced to reconcile a past he tried to forget.Cash's writing is so powerful, and he conveys so much with his words, like this:"Pretty took the will to be so and the money to do it and the time to see it and the sleep to maintain it, and Ella didn't have any of those things."and:"But no matter how long the (Goldberg) brothers and their families lived in town, they never forgot the first night in their new home when some time before dawn they awoke to the orange glow of the six-foot-tall wooden cross afire in the front yard. They also never forgot the next morning's visit from the Christian Ladies' Association, a group largely comprised of the wives of local ministers. The women appeared unannounced that Saturday morning, cakes and flowers and casseroles in hand. They walked single-file up the walk past the blackened grass and the charred, smoking remains of the cross their husbands had left behind."I'm not sure that reading The Last Ballad made me hopeful that things are better in our country or sad that not enough progress has been made. Cash based his book on a real incident, and Ella Wiggins was a real woman who took on factory owners in Gaston, North Carolina. Like the strong female characters in the movies Norma Rae (based on a real woman, Crystal Lee Sutton) and Karen Silkwood in Silkwood, Ella Wiggins is an unforgettable woman looking to make a more just world. We need more of them.
    • 3/5
      Well written story of Ella Mae Wiggins and her death at the Loray Mill Strike in 1929. I had a hard time keeping involved with it at times as I wasn't that interested in the work done by the union...but the home life & working conditions that these people suffered and the strength that must have took was very thought provoking and inspiring
    • 3/5
      If her job in the textile mills does not kill her, poor living conditions will. Her husband left without knowing there was another child on the way. Ella May lends her voice to the cause when the union organizer came to town. Becoming recognizable is never a good thing when those with the money, power, and privileges do not want to share. The author does a good job describing the inequalities and violence of the period. Superficial treatment of some characters distracted from the story upsetting the pace. The ending showed drastic changes to the family but show little if any change to the working conditions. I received this book through a Goodreads giveaway. Although encouraged, I was under no obligation to write a review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.
    • 4/5
      Ella May Wiggins is a 28 year-old woman with five kids, one who has already died. Six days a week she walks two mile to work the night shift at American Mill No.2, a textile mill in 1929, for $9.00 a week. With no husband, this is barely enough to keep her family afloat. Luckily, Ella may has the help of her colored neighbors in Stumptown when she is at work. Fed up with the long hours, dangerous conditions and paltry pay, Ella May joins the labor union movement. She is quickly elevated as a poster child for the movement, especially because of her unique voice and songwriting skills that weave her experience in the mill into a ballad that all workers can relate to. Told through alternating viewpoints of Ella May and people who came in and out of her life, we learn about Ella May's involvement in the labor union movement and how it ultimately led to her demise. This is not a spoiler as this is revealed quite early on in the story. However, this was quite a shock to me and for the rest of the story I was wondering how all of these other viewpoints would lead up to that moment. I did enjoy learning about this time in history and the labor union movement, especially the role that women played. I was definitely inspired by Ella May's song and was glad to learn that it had such an impact on those around her. Through the different voices, I was lead through a dark part of US history, the fight for and against worker's rights. I do wish that there was more of a centralized voice, with so many narrators I did have a little trouble focusing on Ella May and seeing how everything fit together in some cases. This story was received for free in return for an honest review.
    • 4/5
      What would you do if you were in your late twenties, already have had for children and now a new one on the way. Your husband has left you, you are now poor and alone, living in a shack in the black section of town. You, yourself are not black nor are your children, but they have proven to be wonderful friends, one named Violet you call your best friend. In order to feed your children, you work at a textile mill, 60-70 hour work weeks, making only nine dollars a week. Then you see flyers asking people to protest, strike and join a Union. They promise many things, better pay, shorter hours, better working conditions, and for Ella Mae she sees this as possibly her only chance to better herself and children. The year is 1929, in the Carolinas and there are many textile mill, blacks and whites both work at the mills but in separate areas or separate floors. What would you do? My father was a Union worker, my husband worked Union for over forty years. We supported Union stores, I have only been in a Walmart three times, Aldis, once. I knew what a struggle these early supporters faced, but never to the extent highlighted in this book. Ella Mae is a strong character, her life incredibly hard. We hear from many different characters in alternating chapters, all either fighting for the right to unionize, both black and white, or involved with those against the Unions or mill owners themselves. We get a broad view, see all sides. Parts are heartbreaking, parts show how falsely things were painted, and parts show how quickly things can get out of hand. This author is a marvel, I love how he puts his stories together, they are always informative and heartfelt, full of truths. My one complaint is that I felt one revelation made early in the book would have had more of an impact if held until later.As with all who in earlier years fought for our rights, in whatever way, we owe them a debt of gratitude. Unfortunately, I don't think we are done fighting for, or maintaining our rights, not with what I have seen on my television news this week, not with what is happening with individual rights in my country. Seems we go backwards instead of forward.ARC from William Morrow and Edelweiss.Released the beginning of October.
    • 5/5
      In this beautifully crafted novel, the labor movement in the 1920's in the South is brought painfully to life. We follow the hard scrabble life story of Ella May, who against all odds briefly becomes a union spokesperson. The victim of abject poverty and abusive relationships, she nonetheless fights the employment practices of the mills and pervasive racism, at the same time attempting to care for her four children with another on the way. Positive characters balance the ugliness of the community sentiment and union politics, but there is no glossing over the violence, racism, and misogyny that seem relentless . Two chapters from the point of view of one of Ella May's daughters show resilience and strength in the end.
    • 4/5
      I have read and enjoyed Wiley Cash'e other two books, A Land More Kind Than Home, and This Dark Road to Mercy. This story was a real eye opener for me. It takes place small town in North Carolina, in 1929. Based on true events, it is a shocking revelation to read about the dreadful treatment of people the Southern USA. Ella May is our main protagonist, and she is a woman in her twenties, working 12 hours shifts, 6 days a week at a cotton mill factory. She lives in shack with her four children, as her husband has long left her . Being a more progressive or practical sort of a person, she lives next door to African American people , who are treated even worse than folks like Ella May. This is the story of the beginning of unions in the USA, or as people saw it at that time, the onset of a Communist Menace. I really was shocked by the way life was - and probably still is in parts of the USA.The one weakness that I felt the story had was that it was told from perhaps too many points of view. At times that made the story seem a bit hard to follow. Overall, a very important read.4 stars and recommended.
    • 5/5
      In 1929 working in the mills in North Carolina a young mother, Ella May Wiggins, must feed her family on $9 a week for 72 hours After seeing a circular talking about the unions and how much more money she could make and better conditions she decides to join and thus her story is told. A true story and a wonderful historical novel, one of the best of 2017. Women were strong back in those days....they are still strong now.
    • 4/5
      I was completely engaged with this book and the memorable character of Ella Mae Wiggins from the first page. It is all the more powerful because it is based on a real person who worked at the Loray Mills in Gastonia, NC in 1929. It is difficult for us to comprehend the conditions under which the mill workers lived and worked without this eye-opening account.A pregnant Ella Mae had the courage and conviction to advocate for unions despite the dangers it posed to her and her family. This family and the other mill workers truly defined the term "hardscrabble existence," especially after her seemingly worthless husband left them, and she endured the heartbreak of losing a child through a preventable illness if she'd had the means to provide adequate medical care.Wiley Cash is a consummate story teller. It is impossible to read any of his noteworthy novels without being impressed by his ability to bring the characters and their environment to life.My thanks to Goodreads and William Morrow for the opportunity to review this book in exchange for an honest review.
    • 5/5
      I again tackle an historical novel with it’s roots in the US. I am trying to read more about the past of this country – the good and the bad. In the course of the historical record, the period covered by The Last Ballad happened about an eye blink ago. Considering the path of the United States and its progress, it happened eons ago. Although I fear given the current state of workers’ rights in this country that some of the progress made as a result of the people who fought for the unions is being lost and American labor rights are being eroded.Ella May Wiggens is living a very hard life in a mixed race community in North Carolina. She works in one of the mills – long hours, six days a week and she makes $9 for her efforts. She has made some bad choices when it comes to men and she has 5 children who rely on her. That $9 doesn’t stretch very far and when Ella May learns about a group promising better wages and working conditions she wants to know more about it so she uses her one day off to go to a union meeting. It’s there that the course of her life changes.Ella May goes to work for the union. Along the way she makes some new friends – some are very surprising. Other friendships are strengthened as she pushes the union to include her friends at the mill. They are reluctant because they are Negro and while the union is all in favor of their membership they don’t think it’s the time yet in North Carolina.The book also explores the lives of the people on the other side of the tracks – the mill owners but this is Ella May’s story and it’s a powerful tale. A trailblazing woman from history who was basically lost until this book brought her back to life.I will admit that it took me a little while to get into this book. Mr. Cash’s writing style for Ella May was rooted in her era so the rhythm of the book required a bit of adjustment. Once I did I found myself immersed in her world. It was quite often, a very unpleasant world to inhabit as you can imagine. Ella May lived in what only kindly could be called a shack with her five children and the men in her life were less than reliable. It’s a shame because she was a driven, talented and intelligent woman – far ahead of her time.The issues in this book are part of the building blocks of this country. The ordinary people who were lost in these fights are often forgotten so it’s wonderful to see someone like Ella May brought back to life in an engrossing book like this. I will note that the book has piqued my interest in learning more about the start of the labor movement in the country. I must admit that at times in my reading I was quite angry and horrified at working conditions for the people in the mill and the attitude of “management.” And trust me – my father was a man known for his distaste of unions. But in learning more about how and why they began I fully understand their need. And as noted above I fear things are going backwards in regards to worker protections so all of the work of the people like Ella May may be in vain.The Last Ballad was a book that stayed with me and it will stay on my bookshelf for I think it is one I will want to read again. There is much to find in this tale of one simple woman trying to better herself for the sake of her children. It’s everyone’s story in a way.
    • 5/5
      The Last Ballad describes the struggles of both labor organization and racial integration in North Carolina fiber mills during the early 20th century. Wiley Cash tells the story of Ella May Wiggins, a white worker turned activist who ultimately lost her life while working for the cause. Ella May was a single mother living in poverty, doing her best to feed her family. She believed in the union cause, but perhaps more importantly, they paid her a better wage as a union organizer than she could earn in the mills, and it provided her a way to try to improve working conditions for both black and white workers.I loved the structure of this book. There are several narrators, each with their own personal history. Their individual threads advance Ella May’s story, and sometimes intersect with one another as well. Ella May’s daughter Lilly’s thread is set in 2005, providing both prologue and epilogue for the book. Cash’s afterword, where he discusses the history behind this book and his personal interest and connection to it, was also very interesting. Highly recommended.
    • 4/5
      The setting is 1929 and times are hard for everyone. Ella May feels the pressure to keep her job in the mill. I don’t think her boss thinks very highly of her. When one of my children were sick, I stayed home from work. Ella May gets in trouble when she stays home with a sick child . I thought her boss was heartless and I wanted to smack him.The book is based on actual events and the author does a good job of showing how hard it was to work in a mill as a woman. The hours were long and the pay was not nearly enough. What happens when the union comes to the mill? The owners don’t take kindly to someone trying to rile their workers up. The danger is well depicted in the story as anger spreads throughout the mill. Ella May is a strong woman, but can she stand up for what is right without getting hurt? The other characters brought much understanding of how labor laws can make workers and employers go up against each other. I loved the story and how much turmoil happens when lines are crossed in disputes in the workplace. I received an advanced copy of this book from Good Reads early readers programs. The review is my own opinion.READING PROGRESS
    • 4/5
      “There is an old saying that every story, even your own, is either happy or sad depending on where you stop telling it. I believe I'll stop telling this one here.” In 1929, Ella Mae Wiggins was working in a textile plant, in the Appalachia foothills of North Carolina. Wages were grim and the working conditions were grueling, as they workers toiled in 60-70 hour work weeks. She could barely feed her children. When a union organization arrives from up north, they are able to recruit Ella, to join the cause. She becomes a beacon of hope and she also becomes a deadly target for the mill owners, the KKK and the authorities.I had not heard of Ms. Wiggins but thanks to Mr. Cash's latest novel, he has enlightened me on this unsung and courageous young woman. The story-telling and research that went into this book, is truly inspiring and Cash has proven, once again, that he is one of our most reliable southern authors, working today. Seek it out!
    • 5/5
      Based on areal person, this novel takes the reader back to the 1920’s rural North Carolina where the poor are basically “owned” by the fabric mills. There’s no hope, only a bleak future. Ella May, a mill employee becomes convinced the only way out is to align with the Unions. Bleakness plus hope underlie the entire novel and create a picture of a strong-willed woman willing to fight for her future and those around her.
    • 4/5
      The biggest problem with novels based on actual events is those pesky spoilers. Seriously, how many people who watched the movie Titanic didn’t know at the outset that that ship was going to sink? Sometimes, though, it is necessary to put a human face on events that shape the world we live in. If Jack hadn’t sacrificed himself and died of hypothermia to save the woman he loved, how could we possibly come to care about a hunk of steel plummeting to the ocean floor?So it is with the early days of the American labor movement. We learned in school how those who worked for long hours under hellish conditions for starvation wages took a stand against rich factory owners who had the resources to buy not only armies of hired muscle and Pinkertons but the very government and military itself to maintain control of their mines and factories. But it can never become personal until we read first-hand the stories of Orville Frank Aderholt, a police chief who strove to maintain order in chaos but ended up dead in a shoot-out, or Ella May Wiggins, folksinger and labor organizer who was murdered by a mob of strike breakers. And few authors are better suited to resurrect the voices than Wiley Cash, a native son of North Carolina and master of southern literature. Although both sides painted different pictures of Ella May Wiggins, some things are known. Like many Appalachian hill people, she was lured away from the mountains to a life in the factories with promises of good jobs by company recruiters hired to bring in lots of cheap labor to run their mills. Her job at American Mill in Bessemer City, North Carolina, wasn’t enough to provide adequate food and shelter for her and her four children so she found the rhetoric of the labor unions. Like many hill people, Ella May had a close connection with folk music and used it to tell her story and union rallies. It is unsettling to read how closely connected the unions were to the Communist party at this time in our history but the reality is that the party was one of the most outspoken advocate for the abolition of Jim Crow laws, an end to lynching, equal access to education, interracial marriage, and the rights of workers to demand fair wages and safe working conditions. I suspect that the animosity Americans have towards communism today stems more from the propaganda spread by the captains of industry who needed to win the war for popular opinion and couldn’t do it by preaching that living wages are bad. Another problem that authors experience when writing novels about actual events is that those actual events don’t always end in a way that one would wish them to, but Cash reminds us of the old adage that ‘every story, even your own, is either happy or sad depending on where you stop telling it.” Not all author know when to end a story, but Wiley Cash does. *Quotations are cited from an advanced reading copy and may not be the same as appears in the final published edition. The review was based on an advanced reading copy obtained at no cost from the publisher in exchange for an unbiased review. While this does take any ‘not worth what I paid for it’ statements out of my review, it otherwise has no impact on the content of my review.FYI: On a 5-point scale I assign stars based on my assessment of what the book needs in the way of improvements:*5 Stars – Nothing at all. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.*4 Stars – It could stand for a few tweaks here and there but it’s pretty good as it is.*3 Stars – A solid C grade. Some serious rewriting would be needed in order for this book to be considered great or memorable.*2 Stars – This book needs a lot of work. A good start would be to change the plot, the character development, the writing style and the ending. *1 Star – The only thing that would improve this book is a good bonfire.
    • 5/5
      I again tackle an historical novel with it’s roots in the US. I am trying to read more about the past of this country – the good and the bad. In the course of the historical record, the period covered by The Last Ballad happened about an eye blink ago. Considering the path of the United States and its progress, it happened eons ago. Although I fear given the current state of workers’ rights in this country that some of the progress made as a result of the people who fought for the unions is being lost and American labor rights are being eroded.Ella May Wiggens is living a very hard life in a mixed race community in North Carolina. She works in one of the mills – long hours, six days a week and she makes $9 for her efforts. She has made some bad choices when it comes to men and she has 5 children who rely on her. That $9 doesn’t stretch very far and when Ella May learns about a group promising better wages and working conditions she wants to know more about it so she uses her one day off to go to a union meeting. It’s there that the course of her life changes.Ella May goes to work for the union. Along the way she makes some new friends – some are very surprising. Other friendships are strengthened as she pushes the union to include her friends at the mill. They are reluctant because they are Negro and while the union is all in favor of their membership they don’t think it’s the time yet in North Carolina.The book also explores the lives of the people on the other side of the tracks – the mill owners but this is Ella May’s story and it’s a powerful tale. A trailblazing woman from history who was basically lost until this book brought her back to life.I will admit that it took me a little while to get into this book. Mr. Cash’s writing style for Ella May was rooted in her era so the rhythm of the book required a bit of adjustment. Once I did I found myself immersed in her world. It was quite often, a very unpleasant world to inhabit as you can imagine. Ella May lived in what only kindly could be called a shack with her five children and the men in her life were less than reliable. It’s a shame because she was a driven, talented and intelligent woman – far ahead of her time.The issues in this book are part of the building blocks of this country. The ordinary people who were lost in these fights are often forgotten so it’s wonderful to see someone like Ella May brought back to life in an engrossing book like this. I will note that the book has piqued my interest in learning more about the start of the labor movement in the country. I must admit that at times in my reading I was quite angry and horrified at working conditions for the people in the mill and the attitude of “management.” And trust me – my father was a man known for his distaste of unions. But in learning more about how and why they began I fully understand their need. And as noted above I fear things are going backwards in regards to worker protections so all of the work of the people like Ella May may be in vain.The Last Ballad was a book that stayed with me and it will stay on my bookshelf for I think it is one I will want to read again. There is much to find in this tale of one simple woman trying to better herself for the sake of her children. It’s everyone’s story in a way.
    • 5/5
      The Last Ballad by Wiley Cash tells the story of Ella May Wiggins, a single mother of four, who challenges the status quo by joining a burgeoning Labor movement in the mill towns of Appalachia. Ella May is so colorful, brave, and heroic (and her working conditions so awful) that it is easy to imagine Mr. Cash conjuring her up for a fairy tale, but in fact she was a real person, and this novel is based on actual events in 1929. Ella is not perfect, especially by the standards set for a woman in the 1920’s. Chapters alternate between Ella’s story and letters written by her daughter, Lilly, to pass on the family’s history to a beloved nephew. From history class, I knew that things did not end well for coal miners and mill workers in the early days of the labor movement in the USA, especially when the Pinkerton agents were called in, but reading a story can make you understand something in a way no mere recounting of facts can. In today’s divisive political climate, with tensions glaring between races, sexes, and social classes, an understanding of our history is more important than ever. I highly recommend this book!
    • 3/5
      The Last Ballad is the true story of Ella May Wiggins, a young mother of 5 children, who worked in the textile mill in 1929 and became the voice of the union struggle for workers’ rights. Ella only earned $9 a week working nights at the mill, unable to stay home to care for her ill children. Her husband ran off, and she lived as a single parent in Stumptown, depending on the help of her poor neighbors to care for her children while she worked grueling hours at the mill.

      Cash’s story of Wiggins and her involvement with the formation of the union is a fascinating, often-ignored piece of history. The book uses multiple perspectives, which is a useful technique to show the determination of the grassroots efforts of the labor movement and why unions were the only answer for many people with no other options. This book is important and Ella’s story needs to be told; however, it’s over-researched, and Cash often drifted into tangents of historical information or recitation of timelines that pulled me out of the story. Also, the outcome is revealed early in the book, which deflated the powerful ending.

      The Last Ballad is good, but not great. I knew what was coming, since Cash told me from the beginning, so most of the story was just watching the events unfold. The ending was gentle and heartbreaking, which almost redeemed the slow middle.

      I really enjoyed another novel of Cash’s, A Land More Kind Than Home, so although The Last Ballad fell flat for me, I still look forward to his subsequent books.
      Many thanks to Edelweiss and William Morrow for the advance copy in exchange for my honest review.
    • 5/5
      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.
    • 4/5
      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.
    • 2/5
      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.