“One of the most captivating novels of the year.” – Washington Post NATIONAL BESTSELLERA Best Book of the Year: Bloomberg | Boston Globe | Chicago Public Library | Chicago Tribune | Esquire | Kirkus | New York Public Library | New York Times Book Review (Historical Fiction) | NPR’s Fresh Air | O Magazine | Washington Post | Publishers Weekly | Seattle Times | USA Today A Library Reads Pick | An … Library | Chicago Tribune | Esquire | Kirkus | New York Public Library | New York Times Book Review (Historical Fiction) | NPR’s Fresh Air | O Magazine | Washington Post | Publishers Weekly | Seattle Times | USA Today
A Library Reads Pick | An Indie Next Pick
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Beautiful Ruins comes another “literary miracle” (NPR)—a propulsive, richly entertaining novel about two brothers swept up in the turbulent class warfare of the early twentieth century.
An intimate story of brotherhood, love, sacrifice, and betrayal set against the panoramic backdrop of an early twentieth-century America that eerily echoes our own time, The Cold Millions offers a kaleidoscopic portrait of a nation grappling with the chasm between rich and poor, between harsh realities and simple dreams.
The Dolans live by their wits, jumping freight trains and lining up for day work at crooked job agencies. While sixteen-year-old Rye yearns for a steady job and a home, his older brother, Gig, dreams of a better world, fighting alongside other union men for fair pay and decent treatment. Enter Ursula the Great, a vaudeville singer who performs with a live cougar and introduces the brothers to a far more dangerous creature: a mining magnate determined to keep his wealth and his hold on Ursula.
Dubious of Gig’s idealism, Rye finds himself drawn to a fearless nineteen-year-old activist and feminist named Elizabeth Gurley Flynn. But a storm is coming, threatening to overwhelm them all, and Rye will be forced to decide where he stands. Is it enough to win the occasional battle, even if you cannot win the war?
Featuring an unforgettable cast of cops and tramps, suffragists and socialists, madams and murderers, The Cold Millions is a tour de force from a “writer who has planted himself firmly in the first rank of American authors” (Boston Globe).
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The Cold Millions is a literary unicorn: a book about socio-economic disparity that’s also a page-turner, a postmodern experiment that reads like a potboiler, and a beautiful, lyric hymn to the power of social unrest in American history. It’s funny and harrowing, sweet and violent, innocent and experienced; it walks a dozen tightropes. Jess Walter is a national treasure.
What a fabulous voice this author has. He makes a particular moment in history leap to life in this entertaining, beautifully written novel.
Loved this book – never thought I’d fall so unhesitatingly into the world of Spokane union organizers in the early 1900’s, but that’s how brilliant Jess Walter is.
Beautiful Ruins was one of my favorite reads of the past few years, and Walter’s follow-up, though different in many ways, is just as ambitious and entertaining. Come for the gritty ecosystem of cops, working poor, criminals and victims (and those who are both!), stay for the real-life pregnant 19-year-old labor organizer Elizabeth Gurley Brown. It’s a corker.
I had high hopes for this book, this author is a master craftsman, a true wordsmith. I have enjoyed many of his other books. That’s not to say I did not enjoy this one, I did, just not to the degree I expected. I loved the characters, their plight, the time period and setting. What more could a reader ask?
Throughout the year I am stumbling in the dark looking for that great read that will immerse me into that ever elusive, “Fictive Dream.” I think most all avid readers are involved in this same hunt. If I’m lucky I find five out of a fifty. I was hoping The Cold Millions would be one of these books.
What kept me at arms-length in this story was the multitude of points of view that stopped the forward motion of the story. I loved the three primary characters and the main story thread. Each time the author switched, yet again, to another character the main story line came to a complete stop while the author gave backstory on the new character. Instead of having three or four stories braided into one plait the structure is a tree limp with many different branches. We go along the limb buried in the story and then come to a branch where we take a hard-right detour. The detours are masterfully done and could be character sketches or short stories in their own right. But I’m in it for the, Fictive Dream, that wonderful plait of stories lines woven and seamless that carry me away, and in the end, I regret that there isn’t more.
Would I recommend this book? Absolutely.
David Putnam author of The Bruno Johnson series
The Cold Millions is the story of two tramp brothers, Gig and Rye, who speak out against the work practices of the wealthy mine owners in Spokane, WA. When a cop is killed, the police come down hard on the protestors. Elizabeth Gurley Flynn speaks on behalf of the workers. Lem Bland is the mine owner and manipulator of many of the players.
The story takes place primarily in 1909 and 1910, with the epilogue in 1964.
This novel details the struggles for workers rights, and the dirty tactics that the owners took to quiet the uprisings. The love between Gig and Rye was so strong, the brothers sacrificed so much for each other, it was very touching. While much of the novel was difficult, I felt there was some redemption in the end.
My fave American writer. Review to come
This book is about the labor movement in the American Northwest in the early 20th century. The main characters are Rye and Gig Dolan, two brothers who ride the rails from town to town looking for work, The cast of characters also includes a devious mine owner, a savvy burlesque performer, union goons, company goons, an idealistic lawyer, a fearless female union organizer and a mysterious drifter whose loyalties are unclear. Sixteen-year-old Rye is a babe in the woods when Gig is jailed for union activity and the various rascals in the book try to use the situation to their own advantage. But Rye finds help, too, and the ending to this heart-wrenching book offers a ray of hope.
Acclaimed author Jess Walter (The Financial Lives of The Poets, Over Tumbled Graves, Beautiful Ruins) takes his newest novel The Cold Millions in a vastly different direction than his previous works. Classified as a historical fiction, Walter sets his characters in the early 1900s in his hometown of Spokane, Washington. Yet, unlike other novels that Walter has written in this setting, it is apparent that the amount of research he put into The Cold Millions to accurately portray history is clear in the writing. By combining the elements of history of the timeframe with interactions of true historical figures, Walter spins a literary yarn turned gem with multiple viewpoints to bring about a classic novel. Full of themes that Walter subtly writes into his novels, The Cold Millions may even have you desiring for another Walter novel as soon as possible. Some may find that the beginning is a dense read, but never fear: as soon as the first few chapters are conquered, the remainder of the book is redeemed by Walter’s renowned characteristic of wordsmithing and underlying dashes of dark humor.
In 1909, the cold millions,”living and scraping and fighting and dying,” with no chance in this world, are countered by the cold millionaires in their palatial, golden homes who dole out thousands to secure their privilege.
Migrant workers sheltered in open fields as they drifted between cities, looking for work. The police cleared out the vagrants. The working men were lured by union organizers of the Industrial Workers of the World, promising to give workers a fair deal and a voice by taking power out of the hands of capitalist bosses.
The rise of unions was met with hostility, their leaders vilified as anarchists and revolutionaries who recruited discouraged workers into an expendable army.
The rich didn’t want to level the playing field. They sold the dream of opportunity, the chance to rise into wealth like they had.
Pull yourself up by your bootstraps originally meant to do the impossible. We hear about the few who started with nothing and built empires. And of the 1% who now control the bulk of money, many unconcerned about the cold millions who exist outside of the mythic American Dream.
Jess Walter’s novel tells the story of Gig and Rye, sons of Irish immigrants who have died, the boys become migrant workers. Pawns in the system, they had to pay money for information on who is hiring; after a while they were fired and once again had to pay money for information on who is hiring…
Gig is a Wobblie. When Rye sees him arrested at a peaceful demonstration of unionists, he is moved to join the protest. East Coast union organizer Elizabeth Gurley Flynn arrives to raise money to hire Charles Darrow to defend Gig and the five hundred workers wrongfully imprisoned and inhumanly treated. Rye becomes a symbol–the sixteen-year-old orphan abused by the police.
Rye is also courted by the richest man in town, Lemuel Brand, to spy on Gurley. Brand hires Dalveaux to stop the next union meeting, rolling out a speech about the “dangers of socialism–East Coast agitators–immigrant filth–concerned mine owners and business leaders–real Americans–jail full of vermin–mayor’s hands tied–in support of police–moral responsibility–commercial interests–future in balance–last stand of decency–“. Rye and Gurley are to be stopped.
One man to a boat. We all go over alone. The lesson comes early in the novel. Cops and killers, detectives and anarchists, wealthy men deciding everything in a back room, and Gurley–Rye knew them all. Each tried to be in charge of his own life. Rye outlasted them all, partly because of Gig’s sacrifice, and partly because he found work and a family that took him in. Rye wasn’t alone in the boat, after all. He was lucky. He won a few battles, and Gurley said that was all one could hope for in this life.
The Cold Millions is about the rise of the unions; it is historical fiction that makes past places and people come alive; it is a family drama that will tug at your heartstrings. The writing is fantastic. And best of all, it is a mirror flashing light on timeless social and personal conflicts.
Meaningful, entertaining page turner even if one already knows the historical reality of the labor movement around the turn of the century (1900) and links the movement to the 1960’s Civil Rights movement. Well written.
Jess Walter has been one of my favorite writers since his journalist days at the Spokesman-Review. A new Jess Walter book is a much-looked-forward-to Big Event!