The Last Ballad
Published in 2017, Wiley Cash’s heartbreaking The Last Ballad, is a historic novel that takes place in the small textile mill towns of the south-central piedmont of North and South Carolina, where the author grew up. The novel is inspired by the true events of the Loray Mill strike of 1929, and the heroine, Ella May Wiggins, is based upon a real-life historical figure.
Ella May works as a spinner at American Mill No. 2 in Bessemer City. She earns nine dollars for a seventy-two-hour work week for which she must eke out a living to feed her four living children, one of whom is sick. She has already lost a son to whooping cough, her husband has run off, and she is expecting another man’s baby.
The conditions at the mill are horrific—early in the novel, Ella May recalls an incident where she witnessed an underaged worker lose three fingers in a machining accident in which she is compelled to pick them up and give them back. The incident is representative of the larger picture of the poor treatment and working conditions of the employees, and unfortunately the child and the family get no recompense because the parents had knowingly let their twelve-year-old misrepresent his age to get the job, absolving the mill owners of responsibility.
Ella May and her children live in Stumptown, a poverty-stricken mill housing area. She and her best friend, Violet, work the night shift together. Ella May carries a flyer in her pocket inviting the textile workers to unite, and decides to attend the rally to see what it’s all about. Her life changes when she hitches a ride with two female strike workers and on the way, tells them her story. They ask her to share her story on stage during which she sings a ballad she has written called “The Mill Mother’s Lament.” The ballad becomes the theme song for the cause, and after the event, Ella May unwittingly becomes the face of the struggle, and is offered a job with the union.
The novel is told in multiple viewpoints. One voice leads to another, a character mentioned earlier comes back to narrate the story from his or her perspective and the concentric circles get wider as the novel gets richer. In the interview that follows the novel, Cash says, “I hoped to give the reader a sense of the historical moment and the many competing forces that collided in a storm of race, class, and gender that gave rise to this violent upheaval.”
“Equal pay for equal work” for all is what Ella May hopes to achieve, but the union is against allowing Black people to join the cause. After a night of violence and upheaval in which the police chief is murdered and the union representatives are arrested or sent home, Ella May unexpectedly finds herself in the role of union leader. In a final attempt to unionize the Black workers, Ella May’s convoy is ambushed and she is shot in the chest where she dies, ironically, in a cotton field.
Part of my interest in reading The Last Ballad is that the setting of the mill towns are my stomping grounds—I was intrigued by this glimpse into the history of Gastonia, Ranlo, Lowell, Cramerton, Belmont, Cherryville, Waco, Shelby, and Lincolnton. A drive through these towns reveals the skeletal husks of many abandoned mills with blown out windows and collapsing roofs, and the roads surrounding them are dotted with recognizable mill houses. There has been a trend to repurpose some of the massive old mill buildings—in fact, I bought the cabinets for our home at a cabinetry manufacturer housed in a converted mill in Bessemer City. Could it be Ella May’s mill?
To date, I’ve read three of Cash’s four novels—along with The Last Ballad, A Land More Kind Than Home and This Dark Road to Mercy. Known for their Southern Gothic elements and blending of drama with suspense, Cash’s novels have won numerous awards including the Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award and two Southern Book Prizes. I’m looking forward to reading his latest, When Ghosts Come Home.