FORGOTTEN BOOK; TO THE BRIGHT AND SHINING SUN

To the Bright and Shining Sun by James Lee Burke  (1989)

An early book from the author -- his second , this standalone focuses on seventeen-year-old Perry Woodson Hatfield James, descended from both Frank James and Anse Hatfield (of Hatfield-McCoy Fued fame).  Perry comes from an impovrished coal mining family; his faather, woodson, has been unable to work for ten years due to an accident in the mines, and Perry himself has been working in the mines since he was fifteen.  Appalachian coal miners in the Sixties did not have it easy.  The mine owners held all the power, paid low wages, did not care about mine safety, bled their workers through rents on their homes and through the company store, and basically tossed the workers aside when they begame too ill or injured to work.  To be a coal miner ws to walk hand in hand with devastating poverty.

Now the miners have organized and are on strike.  The mine owners have hired scabs to do the work, and have employed thugs to terrorize the union men.  Tensions run high and violence often occurs on booth sides.  Perry's uncle, who has a criminal record, takes him along as he and two sadistic union psychopaths as they attempt to blow up a mine.  A company man is unintentially killed in the explosion.  although Perry had nothing to do with the death, just his being there puts him in legal jeopardy.  Perry, the main bread-winner of the family -- his father pulls in a pittance clearing the forest for the government, can find no work anywhere.  Perry's older borther is dead, and his many siblings are too young to work, and the youngest child has tuberculosis and needs medical care the family cannot afford.  Perry signs up for the Job Corps, and is sent out of state for traiining and education (like many from his area, Perry is illiterate).

Perry is stubborn, proud, and quick-tempered.  At first, he fights the unfamilar regimentation he faces.  Slowly, he turns himself around, beginnings gaining job skills and an education, and is soon promoted.  Any extra money Perry earns, he sends to his family.  Then, with just a couple of onths of training to go before he can get a decent-paying job as a machine operator in Cincinnati, his father is mrtally injured in a bombing at the union hall. and Perry leaves the Job Corps to look after his family.  The bombing was done by three company thugs brought in from the outside -- no one knows who they are or where to find them.  That does not stop Perry from vowing to find them and kill them.

To the Bright and Shining Sun is a novel of contrasts, utilizing Burke's poetic vision to great effect.  the beauty and natural wonder of Appalachia is set aginst the squalor and desperation of  a people impoverished by a capitalist system that cares nothing for them.  The damge the coal companies do to the countryside is mirrored by the damage they do to the populace, as Perry struggles to find some sort of redemption as he enters manhood.

It is not a comfortable book, but it is a remarkable one.  Burke is one of the greatest prose stylists we have today, with an uncanny knack for both setting and characterization.  To the Bright and Shining Sun is highly recommmended.

I may be my personal prejudices, but I find many thematic similarities between the Appalachia of the Sixties as described by Jsme Lee Burke and the nascent authoritaianism we are experiencing today.  Your mileage may differ.

The book's title, by the way, is from a line in the old bluegrass song "Mollie and Tenbrooks."