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Author’s Statement
As a journalist in the 1990s, I enjoyed researching articles on the “West Virginia Mine Wars” of 1890-1923 – although these labor battles are not easy stories to tell.
To me, the traditional “heroes vs villains” story – even the “poor underclass vs. wealthy oppressors” – wasn’t enough. Both sides could claim “victory,” for example, following the 1921 “Battle of Blair Mountain.” And both sides clearly suffered abysmal defeats in these conflicts which continue to polarize the region a century later.
In writing Carla Rising, my first novel, I was extremely mindful of parallels/allegories for today’s audience. Most notably perhaps: the rise of oligarchs, like my Sheriff Riley Gore, in local/national politics around the world today.
The political domination of energy companies of that time reminded me of the rise of “Big Data” today — of Amazon’s and Google’s effect on publishing, and media-making, especially in the United States. In a word, I personalized the plight of coal miners whose lives and work were cheapened by their employers – much in the same way that Internet firms have cheapened conscientious and time-consuming work of research and writing for news media, for books and nonfiction broadcasts.
Another allegory: During years of studying and publishing about these events of 1921, I was struck by the collaboration between the coal company’s private police/military force and public officials. Federal and state officials did not challenge the presence of a private company’s paramilitary force playing a role in the mining conflict – similar to Blackwater’s role in Iraq or, perhaps, private prisons in today’s United States.
Carla Rising also presents the split on the Left during that time – a split that resulted in the conscious purge of leftists during and after the New Deal, including the black-listing of Socialists and Communist Party members. After the 1980-88 administrations of Ronald Reagan (who participated in black-listing in Hollywood), it was easy to see how more mainstream liberals filled the void left by yesterday’s “reds,” a process of demonization that continues today (2017), pushing the United States further and further to the right.
Some of Carla Rising‘s characters represent the vulnerable middle class – most notably, Mary Rising, Carla’s mother – caught in the middle and pressured to take sides in an increasingly polarized environment.
So, there are plenty of modern allegories to find in Carla Rising. I hope you enjoy it.
– Topper Sherwood,
Berlin, 2017
