"A Union For Appalachian Healthcare Workers, The Radical Roots And Hard Fights Of Local 1199" by John Hennen

 

The advertising blurb on the back cover of this book states in part:

"The union of hospital workers referred to as the 1199 sits at the intersection of three of the most important topis in US history: organize labor, health care, and civil rights.   John Hennen's book explores the union's history in Appalachia, a region that is generally associated with extractive industries but has seen health care grow as a share of the overall economy."

John Hennen is professor emeritus of history at Morehead State University and this is his third published book.  He is a native West Virginian and was educated at Marshall University and West Virginia University.  This is his third book.  He is an excellent researcher and a damn fine writer.  This book is the history of one of the most unique unions in America, Local 1199, a union which defends the rights of healthcare workers in several states, most of which are in Central and Southern Appalachia.  But the union was actually chartered and did its first organizing work in New York City.  The book provides a scholarly account of the work of original organizer Leon Davis who was an immigrant from Belarus.  It also covers the work of Tom Woodruff, another native West Virginian who was educated at Marshall University, and explores the connection between Tom Woodruff and Don West, the founder of The Appalachian South Folklife Center in Pipestem, West Virginia, and co-founder of the Highlander Research and Education Center in New Market, Tennessee.  Woodruff and West both taught at the Southern Appalachian Circuit of Antioch College in Beckley, West Virginia, during a time when Woodruff was also running Appalachian Movement Press in Huntington, West Virginia, before Woodruff left those two positions to become an organizer for Local 1199 and began what is a storied career as a union organizer and eventual operating officer.  

The book chronicles organizing efforts by 1199 in West Virginia, Kentucky, and Southern Ohio in the 1970's which were both successful and hard fought.  The union and its organizers and members were resisted, red baited, and drug through the court systems of nearly every county they attempted to organize in.  Hospital administrators frequently hired strike breaking companies which were generally billed as "consultants" and which used every means possible including arrest, red baiting, and general harassment to attempt to break 1199.  The union did not win all its organizing effforts but, in the long run, it was more successful in organizing healthcare workers in Appalachia than anyone in the region ever imagined it could be.  Across several small communities and small  hospitals, they won key strikes, benefited from support among the communities which often had been strongholds of the United Mine Workers of America, and made union membership and its benefits a real part of life and the American Dream for workers who had generally been poorly paid, without benefits, and forced to live and work at the whim of hospital administrators many of whom proved to be just as mercenary as the local coal operators had been in earlier times when the United Mine Workers were attempting to organize coal miners in the early twentieth century.  

If you are a student of organized labor, the Appalachian Region, a healthcare worker anywhere in America, or simply a supporter of basic human rights, you should read this book.  It is a fine lesson in how determined organizers and union members can win against long odds.  This union, its officials, and members lived a proud portion of history in the Appalachian coal fields and their story deserves to be heard wherever workers have felt as Ma Joad did in "The Grapes of Wrath" when she said, 

"...it looked as though we was beat. Good and beat. Looked like we didn't have nobody in the whole wide world but enemies. Like nobody was friendly no more. Made me feel kinda bad and scared too, like we was lost and nobody cared... ."

 The organizers, national officials, and members of Local 1199 never gave up, never backed down, and never were willing to accept being in a world where it seemed the whole world was their enemy.  Read this book!  :Union, Yes! 

"Sibir" by Farley Mowat, Reflections On An Older Book About Siberia

 

For many years, I have read the works of Canadian naturalist and author Farley Mowat, and several months ago my wife and I read several of his books together which had been the first time she had ever been exposed to his wonderful writiing.  The only negative comment I can make about Mowat and his work is that after he had become widely and wildly successful for works like "Never Cry Wolf" and "A Whale For The Killing", some of his later works were less interesting, less exciting, and, of course, less popular.  But every book I have ever read by Mowat was still filled with occasional shots of his splendid writing and voluminous vocabulary.  When I was younger, I would often read his books with a dictionary by my side because I knew I would find some words along the way that I had never heard, some from his life as a world traveling Canadian, and some from his having been descended from Scottish ancestors who must have passed a great deal of their linguistic panache along with their DNA.  

This book we are discussing was published in 1970, and came about because Mowat was invited to come to Russia by a Russian writer who also lived in and wrote about the extreme north of the country, Siberia, one of the coldest climates on earth with the possible exception of the peaks of the Alps and Himalayas.  Naturally, Mowat took the man up on his offer and eventually made several trips to Russia and Siberia.  In spite of the cold war, and because international concerns were different in those days, Mowat said that he was always well received and well treated wherever he went in the Russia, and particularly in Siberia.  I have been motivated to remember and write about this particular book, because my wife and I are currently reading a much less scholarly book about that region, "Last Of The Breed" by Louis L'Amour which I picked up on a whim in a Goodwill store because it was uncharacteristic of L'Amour's western writing.  I had also picked up two other L'Amour books for the same reason, already read and written about one of them, "Yondering" which is a collection of his short stories.  "Last Of The Breed" has led me back to this Mowat book because, to his credit, L'Amour had done some reasonable amount of research about Siberia before he wrote his book about an American pilot who escapes from a Siberian prison and is attempting to cross Siberia to Alaska in order to escape.  

Issues such as those in the L'Amour book never arose in Mowat's experience in Siberia although the two men do write about several similar aspects of the region which was far less developed in the times Mowat traveled there than it was in 1986 when L'Amour wrote his novel. The vast majority of the region was what is known as the taiga, a vast forested area which was replete with wildlife and few people.  Mowat was being guided on his visits by Yuri Rythkheu, a Russian nature writer and naturalist whose works were motivated by many of the same concerns which motivated Mowat.  The two became close friends over the years they knew each other and corresponded regularly, and in those times, Russia was considerably less repressive than it is today.  Mowat was allowed to travel extensively in the country, was often given official welcomes by local government officials and greeted much like a celebrity might have been even in America at the time.  He came to love Siberia, the Taiga, the people, and the vast wildlife of the region, and writes about it with a great deal of the same emotion and general protective concern he wrote about his native Canadian north.  The people he eoncountered in his travels there were much more open than Russians are today and, at times, Mowat found himself invited into homes and even involved in fairly wild parties.  

I have also known a few others of my friends and acquaintances who have been privileged to travel to Russia in the past including a nurse practitioner who went there as a  young nurse with a Christian based medical entourage and claims to have bribed an airport security officer in order to be allowed to take some medications into the country which she said the officer claimed were not permitted.  Nearly forty years ago, I also knew a few people who traveled to Russia as part of a group sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker group.  But none of those people were ever received in Russia in the open hearted way that Mowat was.  This is a fascinating book despite its age and good reading for anyone who likes to learn the history of other places in the world.  If you can find a copy, read it.  You won't be disappointed.  And, you might even like "Last Of The Breed" by Louis L'Amour. 

"Into Africa: The Epic Adventures of Stanley & Livingstone" by Martin Dugard, Reflections On A Great Biography Of Adventures

 

Recently, I had read and written two blog posts about Former President Theodore Roosevelt's nearly fatal journey into the Amazon  country and down the River of Doubt.  I subsequently strayed into this book in a Goodwill store and since both my wife and I had thoroughly enjoyed the Roosevelt book by Candice Millard, I decided to buy and read t his one.  While it is not quite as well written as the River of Doubt book, it is still a wonderful, and somewhat similar kind of story about two great explorers and adventurers in the times when much of the world was generally unexplored and unmapped.  The research which the author Martin Dugard did for this book is nearly as thorough as the work Millard performed in order to write hers.  The personalities of the four protagonists, two in each of the books, are very similar.  They were all men determined to leave their individual marks on the history and the world and all succeeded in doing so.  The book covers the period from about spring of 1866 to 1874 when Dr. David Livingstone is presumed lost, and perhaps dead, in Africa on a mission to locate the source of the Nile River, and Henry Morton Stanley is sent on a mission to find him by the newspaper publisher James Gordon Bennett, Jr. of the New York Herald.  All three men are bent on success, each of them in search of his own individual realm of success as he envisions it.  

Dr. Livingstone is the considered to be the greatest explorer of his time and has actually become the first man to traverse the continent of Africa on foot.  Bennett is rich, somewhat ruthless and on a drive to become the most successful and wealthy newspaper publisher in America.  Stanley is a western cowboy type, highly motivated to become famous, and willing to do whatever it might take to accomplish his goals.  Livingstone, despite being a very publicly and devoutly religious man has also admitted in at least one exchange with a friend that he  has had sex with over 300 African women.  He is becoming what had to be considered aged in those times and is finding his travels in Africa to be nearly all he can survive.  Stanley is markedly younger and believes himself imminently qualified to follow Livingstone to the darkest reaches of the dark continent in order to make himself famous.  

Both Stanley and Livingstone come close to meeting death on more than one occasion, but they do eventually have their famous meeting in which Stanley apparently actually did mouth is famous introductory query, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume."  Stanley returns to the so-called civilized world of the United States while delivering proof that Dr. Livingstone is actually alive and achieves the fame he has sought.  Dr. Livingstone turns down Stanley's offer to be returned to his native England and shortly thereafter dies.  His body is preserved, although his heart is buried at the site of his death in Africa, and the illustrious corpse is returned to England by his most devoted employee.  This is a great book for the person who likes to read about real adventurers and achievers and well worth reading. 

Revisiting An Old Favorite, "The Subterraneans" by Jack Kerouac

 

 

I was first introduced to the work of Jack Kerouac about 1974 or so by my friend, mentor, and professor Bob Snyder.  At about the same time, he introduced me to Kerouac, Mildred Haun, and Francois Villon.  You can't ask for a much better threesome of authors to come to know.  Since then, I have read every word I can find by all three.  I devoured Kerouac's work much like a famished person just rescued from a long stranding in a wilderness would have devoured a good breakfast of sausage, eggs, biscuits, gravy, and fried apples.  I have returned more than once to one or another of Kerouac's books over the years and every time I am deeply impressed by the skill with which he wrote, and the obvious rapidity of his working style.  "The Subterraneans" has always been one of my four or five favorite Kerouac novels.  Some people refer to it as a novella since it is only about 150 pages.  But for me, it is much a novel as any of his other novels.  It is also one of only two novels in his oeuvre which come across as totally loving, sweet, beautiful, without any level of animosity, anger, fear, or any other negative emotion.  

The novel is about a love affair between the narrator, Leo Percepied, an alter ego of Kerouac himself, and a beautiful young African American woman named Mardou Fox.  The affair is brief, meteoric, heart warming, trusting, and everything an unforgettable love affair should be despite coming to an end which is described in the most simple terms: "And I go home, having lost our love.  And write this book."

When it's over, it's over, and yet it leaves an impression on the reader just as deep and meaningful as it has left on the character Kerouac created due to whatever previous events in his life that served as the impetus for this wonderful, loving little novel might have been.  I suspect this won't be last time I ever pick this sweet little book up to read once again.  And every time I do that, I always find myself thanking God for both Jack Kerouac and Bob Snyder.

"Night Watch" by Jayne Anne Phillips--Notes On Reading A Pulitzer Prize Winner

 

I have for many years made a practice of reading prize winning books in fiction, nonfiction, and juvenile fiction.  I don't read every prize winner every year or even most of them in some years.  I chose to read this one because someone I know on social media recommended it, and it is a 2024 Winner of the Pulitzer Prize.  The brief description of the novel on the official website of the Pulitzers says this about the book: 

From one of our most accomplished novelists, a mesmerizing story about a mother and daughter seeking refuge in the chaotic aftermath of the Civil War—and a brilliant portrait of family endurance against all odds.  (Pulitzer Prizes website 2024) 

The novel is set primarily in West Virginia's Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum which was one of the earliest such mental institutions in America beginning shortly after the states of Maine and Kentucky built the first two such institutions.  The novel is set in the times shortly before, during, and after the Civil War, and is centered on three women in the mountains of West Virginia, and the Civil War sharpshooter who is the son, husband, and father of the three women respectively.  The sharpshooter has been seriously injured during the war and has no memory of who he is, his name, or personal history.  But he has become skilled in caring for the mentally ill while in a hospital in Alexandria, Virginia, and has been referred to the asylum as a night watchman and general aide to the doctor.  The man's mother is a root woman, an herb doctor, or healer. The man's wife and daughter, along with the older woman, are living high in the mountains of West Virginia while he is away in the war and are the victims of marauders from both sides of the conflict at times.  The antagonist in the novel is a Rebel sympathizer who is wandering the countryside alone preying on whomever he can find who is too weak to defend themselves against him.  He moves in with or on the young woman's mother, victimizes the two of them in every way possible and finally drops off the girl and her mother, who has become nonverbal as a result of his rape and abuse of her, at the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum and disappears before returning as an inmate of the institution.  The girl has been ordered to tell the asylum staff that the mother is not related to her, and she is simply a teenage orphan who has been caring for the woman.  The ruse works and the mother is admitted as a patient while her daughter is taken in as an unpaid aide for her mother.  

Eventually, the mother begins to talk and continues the lie their attacker has forced them to tell.  But she also becomes enamored of the doctor in charge of the institution and the feelings are mutual. Her daughter is eventually made a full time nurse, a position which did not require formal educational training or a degree in the 19th century.  When their attacker is brought to the asylum, he is in a violent rage and placed in a locked ward from which he eventually escapes.  The novel comes to a violent climax with the building on fire, the attacker returned to try to murder the women, and, in the meantime the night watchman's wife has recognized him and they have come to tell the doctor they are married and intend to leave to go back to the mountains.  The attacker climbs through the window of the doctor's office as that conversation has begun and attacks the group.  The sharpshooter is shot and killed just as he manages to throw the attacker out a third story window to his death.  All the loose ends are quickly tied up and the girl's mother marries the doctor, the grandmother takes the girl back to the mountains, and all is well that ends well.  

This is a good novel but not a great novel.  It does contain the bones of what could have been a great novel.  But after years of reading many winners of the Nobel, Pulitzer, and other literary prizes, for me the novel is a disappointment.  It is poorly organized, leaves far too many issues hanging at times, and could have been a far better book with a serious rewrite.  I realize when I say such things about a book which others rave about, I have set myself up for anything from a mild sneer of derision to outright claims of ignorance on my part.  The author has a fine resume both as a writer and a trainer of writers.  This is her sixth novel and twelfth book.  It is also the first of her books I have ever read and it is possible that I am not giving her enough credit.  But I really do believe that she, her agent, her editor, and the Pulitzer committee all accepted less than what could have become her best work and a worthy prize winner.  I'd love to have seen this book in a better form after another month or two of work from the author and her editor.  But you might also read it and rave. Don't take my distaste for the book as a total red flag.  If you like the sound of the plot, read it, and form your own opinion. 

Reflections On "The Man Who Fell To Earth" by Walter Tevis

 

 A little more than a year ago, I watched a documentary on KET about the life of Walter Tevis who had suddenly risen once again to a high profile in the media because of the success of a television miniseries based on his book "The Queen's Gambit" which is about a young female character who becomes a chess champion.  I have to admit I have still not read that book despite its having been on my large To Be Read Shelf for over a year.  But I did read his science fiction classic, "The Man Who Fell to Earth" and loved it to the degree that it prompted me to order most of his published works and add them to my long list of books I "will get around to someday". But let's talk about the actual subject of this blog post, "The Man Who Fell To Earth".  Tevis's work on that book is as good as any science fiction I have ever read.  It is one of those rare works of science fiction which also falls solidly within the larger and more important body of what we know as "Great Literature".  It is a masterpiece and deserves every accolade it has ever received. It is masterful science fiction which is solidly based in the minds of both its characters and the author and not in ray gun shoot 'em up scenes which are cheap copies of some bad John Wayne western as much of ordinary science fiction is today.  

 

The main character in the book is Thomas Jerome Newton from the planet Anthea who has been sent to earth to determine if it is possible for the occupants of his doomed planet to emigrate to earth in order to save their lives and their much more advanced culture.  His spaceship is destroyed on landing and it is determined that he will not be able to return to his home planet.  He is humanoid in appearance with some odd features which he is able to disguise well enough to "pass" as human for quite some time.  He becomes a very wealthy individual because he is able to patent many ideas which his culture has produced that are much more scientifically advanced than anything on earth.  But his obvious intelligence and scientific acumen are soon recognized the government as being impossible for an ordinary human to have achieved and "the jig is up" to use common vernacular.  But in the end, he is allowed to remain on earth, still disguised as a human, living in quiet semi-poverty with a Social Security check and a small apartment.  This is a book which no aficionado of science fiction can claim expert status in the field without having read.  The book was made into a movie starring David Bowie in 1976 for which Bowie recieved rave reviews playing the truly unique alien.  It was also made into a 2022 Showtime miniseries which "The Guardian" panned as "a misbegotten and poorly paced attempt to update the 1976 cult sci-fi classic".  I have to admit that I have never seen either production of the work, but I will go so far as to say that I won't bother with the Showtime effort based on "The Guardian's" review.  When the time comes that is available somewhere again on television, I will definitely watch the 1976 work with David Bowie.  

"Yondering", A Short Story Collection By Louis L'Amour-Some Thoughts On How My Reading Has Changed...and changed my life

   

In my teenage years, I read a lot of Louis L'Amour westerns along with some by writers like Zane Grey and Luke Short among others.  I was also reading a lot of science fiction at the time.  About the time I got into high school at 13, I had begun a lifelong shift to primarily what we sometimes pompously call "GREAT Literature", the masters of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry.  Between the time I was 14 and 18 or so, I met Albert Stewart, William Howard Cohen, Harry Caudill, and others in the field of Appalachian Literature and Appalachian Studies and made a deep commitment to work for the rest of my life to improve the lives of Appalachian people while also studiously preserving Appalachian Culture.  At that time, I began a lifelong dive into Appalachian Literature, primarily non-fiction but also a lot of fiction and poetry which has also been coupled with full fledged efforts to improve Appalachian life.  But still, once in a while, I will briefly revert to some of the older styles I was reading including science fiction and a rare western. 

Long ago, I also developed the habit of frequenting used stores like Salvation Army, Goodwill, and others, both privately and corporately owned, to buy used books, and I have found a bunch of authors and books I never would have read otherwise.  I also have found some relatively rare and collectable books that way.  But on a recent trip to a Goodwill store in my area, I found that some recent contributions must have come from a devoted reader of westerns.  The shelves were stocked with a wide variety of western paperbacks from numerous authors and the pile included at least 20 or 30 by Louis L'Amour.  I really had no intentions of buying and reading any of them until I saw this collection of his short stories and a couple of others of his books which I had never seen.  One of those was a novel called "Last Of The Breed" which appears to have been prompted by the story of Francis Gary Powers, the US spy pilot who was captured by Russia in the 1950's, and I bought it but haven't started it yet.  It is set in Siberia where the protagonist is imprisoned in the Russian Gulag and eventually escapes. That character is of Native American heritage and, after escaping, he is chased by a Russian who is of Native Siberian heritage as the American pilot attempts to make it across Siberia to Alaska which is the fastest, but most dangerous route to safety.  I ca't wait to read it.  The other L'Amour book I bought was an epic western called "The Lonesome Gods" which I had never seen.  It is almost 450 pages and much longer than the standard, well formatted, medium sized western novel that made L'Amour's reputation and fortune.  I will eventually read it but not anytime soon.  

The book we are actually discussing here is the collection of short stories called "Yondering" as I said in the title of this blog post.  I had never read any of L'Amour's short stories and definitely wanted to try it.  I was surprised to find that, just like the "Last Of The Breed", it is about subjects which were not standard subject matter in his novels.  As a native of Appalachia who had several relatives who worked in coal mines, I was very pleasantly surprised to find that it contains a short story which is one of the best I have ever read about men trapped in a mine by a roof fall.  The story is not set in a coal mine but, rather, some form of hard rock mine, maybe a gold, silver, or copper mine, and L'Amour actually had worked in such mines for a short time in his early years.  It is a fabulous story of men trapped underground who know they have long odds of ever seeing the light of day again.  The ending is maybe a bit impractical but it is a story well worth reading.  There are also stories about sailors, which L'Amour was also employed as for a short time,  and a couple of good to better stories about life in Asia, in particular, Asian seaports.  One of those is an excellent, well written story about a sailor and his crew mates who befriend a poor local family who are among those who live on small boats in the harbor and make a living by both salvaging and begging. 

This is a book which many people who would not bother to read one of L'Amour's westerns will enjoy.  And, I believe most of you will be pleasantly surprised, as I was, to learn that Louis L'Amour was a better than average author of short stories in several genres he was not well known for.  Years ago, I had read his autobiography and was still surprised by this collection. 

Thoughts On Reading "Imperial Woman" by Pearl S. Buck

 

Over the years, I have read about 10 of Pearl S. Buck's fine novels and written about several of them on this blog.  Recently, in a large purchase of used books from the estate of a former school principal in this community, I obtained several first editions of Buck's novels including a copy of "Imperial Woman" which was published in 1956.  I had never read it and completed it a few weeks ago although I have procrastinated about writing a blog post about it for no good reason.  After having read all three novels in the "Good Earth" trilogy, three novellas which were published under the pseudonym John Sedges, "The Living Reed" which is a Korean novel and, in my opinion, one of her finest other than her masterpiece "The Good Earth".  I love her work and don't believe that she ever allowed herself to write and publish a second rate book.  I had loved "The Living Reed" nearly as much as "The Good Earth", but I have to say that I am now convinced that it must be at most her third best novel running behind "Imperial Woman" and "The Good Earth".

 

"Imperial Woman" is a fictionized biography of Tzu Hsi, the last empress of China who was born of low caste and brought into the Forbidden City as a candidate to become a concubine of the sitting emperor at the time.  She is not only chosen to be one of his concubines but manages to bear him a son, the heir to the Dragon Throne, and becomes his most beloved partner and advisor.  She initially devotes her life to helping her son gain and maintain the throne.  But due to the many weaknesses of her son and his early death, she then manages to gain total control of the kingdom through a male heir she has chosen from the family of one of the dead emperor's advisors.  With the help of her cousin Jung Lu to whom she had been betrothed prior to her becoming a royal concubine, she not only managed to hold onto power but increased her power and popularity over the kingdom while living as a  conflicted type of ruler who is loving, devout, and intellectual while also being absolutely ruthless when it becomes necessary.  

It is said that Buck strove to depict both sides of the empress, who is actually only a regent for the child emperor she has chosen. Buck did an excellent job of achieving that goal.  The character of the empress can be loving and devoted to her son and the few people she allows to be closer to her while also being capable of ordering the deaths of those who oppose her.  She is a powerful and powerfully depicted ruler.  She is also dealing with a lifelong conflict between her love for Jung Lu and the inability to allow it to be a public matter in her royal role.  She arranges a loveless marriage for Jung Lu with one of the women who assists her on a daily basis and they both live with the conflict of being in love and unable to allow that love to be manifested fully.  

This is one of Pearl Buck's best efforts in my opinion and well worth reading by any lover of great literature.  It helps prove, along with "The Living Reed", that Pearl Buck's best work was not finished after "The Good Earth".  She was an incredible novelist and knew the China in which he spent much of life as few Americans ever could.  If you haven't read it, find a copy and reward yourself with this wonderful book.