River of Earth (1940) by James Still

1,001 Novels: A Library of America

River of Earth (1940)

by James Still

Knott County, Kentucky

Kentucky: 5/16

   I don't think there has been a single work of art talking about the benefits of working in a coal mine. Similar to the art surrounding factory work, contemporary readers might wonder how places like coal mines and nineteenth century factories found anyone to work at all.  The truth is that work that now has a terrible reputation represented an upgrade for most people, like the seasonal coal miners in this book, who work in the coal mine when its open and tend to their hardscrabble family patches when it is not. 

  Something I've noticed is that precious few works of art dealing with this subject actually take place INSIDE the mine or factory, rather what you get is the impact the work has on the workers and their families outside the work environment.  I'd be more interested to read a novel about what it is like to work in a coal mine then what the experience is like seeing one's dad work in the mine, which is the situation here.

  I give extra points for any book in the 1,001 Novels project that is published before 1970, but other than the dialect, I wasn't a huge fan of River of Earth.