Made famous in the 1976 documentary Harlan County USA, this pocket of Appalachian coal country has been home to generations of miners-and to some of the most bitter labor battles of the 20th century. It has also produced a rich tradition of protest songs and a wealth of fascinating culture and custom that has remained largely undiscovered by outsiders, until now.
They Say in Harlan County is not a book about coal miners so much as a dialogue in which more than 150 Harlan County women and men tell the story of their region, from pioneer times through the dramatic strikes of the 1930s and '70s, up to the present. Alessandro Portelli, one of the giants of the oral history movement, draws on 25 years of original interviews to take readers into the mines and inside the lives of those who work, suffer, and often die in them-from black lung,
falling rock, suffocation, or simply from work that can be literally backbreaking. The book is structured as a vivid montage of all these voices-stoic, outraged, grief-stricken, defiant-skillfully interwoven with documents from archives, newspapers, literary works, and the author's own participating and critical
voice. Portelli uncovers the whole history and memory of the United States in this one symbolic place, through settlement, civil war, slavery, industrialization, immigration, labor conflict, technological change, migration, strip mining, environmental and social crises, and resistance. And as hot-button issues like mountain-top removal and the use of "clean coal" continue to hit the news, the history of Harlan County-especially as seen through the eyes of those who lived it-is becoming
increasingly important.
With rare emotional immediacy, gripping narratives, and unforgettable characters, They Say in Harlan County tells the real story of a culture, the resilience of its people, and the human costs of coal mining.
This is one of the best non-fiction books I’ve read this year. It’s the middle of December, so I feel pretty safe in saying I won’t read anything in the next couple weeks to top it. In fact, I’ll probably spend the next couple weeks like the past few, going back and consulting this again, re-reading parts as the impulse hits me.
Maybe it’s my interest in and love of the subject. Maybe it’s getting, at least in one part, a companion guide to Harlan County USA, with more words that belong to some of the faces and names I recognize. (Lois Scott, Sudie Crudenberry, Mickey Messer, Basil Collins all make their appearance, and on and on.) Or maybe it’s just that it’s a fantastic book. Eloquent, moving, fascinating, the opposite of condescending, a wonderful oral history from the place where, Portelli writes, “the language is still a cultural treasure, rhythmic and expressive, a marker of identity.”
Is there even any other kind of history? Per George Ella Lyon, here:
I certainly feel that I come out of an oral tradition. Of storytelling and singing that I thought everybody had until I went out into the world. I was really shocked when I went home with a college friend who lived in New Jersey and I was there for a whole weekend and her parents never told a single story. And I asked her when we left, “Are they shy?” She said, “No, why?” And I said, “Because they never told me anything.” And she said, “You didn’t ask for anything.” “Well, I don’t mean like information. I mean stories,” and she said, “Oh, you mean like your family.” And this was a revelation to me. And I was really frightened to think that they didn’t have stories.
I’d go so far as to say, pair this with Harlan County USA, and you’d have as clear a picture of coal country, of Appalachia, of even the South at large, as you could get in one place.
Reading updates
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Started reading
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7 December, 2013:
Finished reading
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7 December, 2013:
Reviewed