Starred review from September 5, 2022
Manning (My Notorious Life) sets this stellar coming-of-age novel in early 20th-century Moonstone, Colo., where a young woman gets a firsthand look at the machinations behind an exploitive mining company and its workers’ efforts to unionize. Sixteen-year-old Sylvie Pelletier’s quarryman father, Jacques, works in the dangerous high-altitude marble mines owned by industrialist Jerome Padgett. Jacques and union representative George Lonahan want to organize the miners, efforts the company fights with various forms of intimidation that escalate to hiring violent Pinkerton thugs, while Padgett’s wife, Inge, hopes to pacify the workers with company-owned libraries and schools. Sylvie leaves her job at the local newspaper and moves into the Padgetts’ luxurious manor for a higher-paying role as Inge’s live-in secretary in summer 1907. There she meets the Gradys, a Black couple whose complex ties to the Padgett family are later revealed, and falls in love with Padgett’s son, Jace, from a previous marriage. The hard-drinking and idealistic Jace seems to return Sylvie’s feelings but departs for college at the end of summer without saying goodbye. Sylvie returns to the newspaper, whose fearless female owner’s reporting on injustices at the mine inspires Sylvie to become a reporter. Meanwhile, winter salary stoppages and a death at the mine rekindle the drive toward unionization as Sylvie grows attracted to Lonahan. Sylvie’s vivid first-person narration captures her own maturing perceptions and the complex personalities of the major characters as well as supporting players including activist Mary “Mother” Jones. Manning shines at giving the era’s class, racial, and economic tensions a human face. This is one to savor. Agent: Sarah Burnes, Gernert Company.
Starred review from March 1, 2023
In 1907, 17-year-old Sylvie Pelletier and her family join her hard-working father at a marble quarry in Moonstone, CO. The worksite is rough--long hours, unpaid labor, and unsafe working conditions. Mentored and hired by the local paper's progressive newspaper owner, Sylvie jumps at the chance, when offered, to escape her family's lifestyle and move to the mine owner's estate to serve as social secretary. Surrounded by wealth, Sylvie notices the gap between the poverty of the quarry townsfolk and the opulence of the manor. Pursued by both the boss's son and a union rabble-rouser, Sylvie might frustrate some with her naivete, yet readers will appreciate how Manning (My Notorious Life) follows her main character's maturation into middle age as a union leader and wife. Narrator Dawn Harvey enhances the text by expertly voicing many characters and accents, including French Canadian and Continental French. The male quarry workers are voiced distinctly, although the most noteworthy voice is Mother Jones's fierce Irish lilt. This production is free from technical errors, and the editing of Harvey voicing coughs and drunken slurred words is flawless. VERDICT Recommend to fans of historical fiction and worker's rights narratives.--Sarah Hill
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