Walter novel mixes fiction, real-life figures

Walter novel mixes fiction, real-life figures
                        

From the opening chapter of “Of Mice and Men,” it is difficult not to read John Steinbeck’s classic American novel without a sense of dread. Readers fall in love with Lennie and George and root for them on their longing quest to put down roots and find a place to call home, all the while knowing it might not end well for one, or both, of the men.

The struggle for Steinbeck’s protagonists is a universal one, filled with uncertainty and heartache. It is a theme that also envelopes Jess Walter’s latest novel, “The Cold Millions,” a story set in the Pacific Northwest in 1909, following two brothers and their American journey amidst union and civil unrest.

It has been eight years since Walter’s last novel, “Beautiful Ruins,” garnered critical praise and made it on most of the “Best of 2012” lists. In “Millions,” Walter returns to historical fiction yet again using real-life figures, in this case labor lawyer Fred Moore, Spokane Police Chief John Sullivan, and labor activist/feminist Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, to help tell his tale.

Again, with a slight homage to Steinbeck, “Millions” focuses on two Irish brothers, Gig and Rye Dolan, living the tramp life while attempting to save enough money to purchase a home and fulfill bigger dreams. One morning, after spending the night on an abandoned ballfield with hundreds of other vagrants looking for work, police officers, fearing a union draw and socialist agenda, show up to break up the gathering. Chaos ensues, a police officer is attacked, and once again, the brothers find themselves on the run, eventually landing in an over-cramped prison cell. It is here that Gurley Flynn takes up the cause of the two brothers, as they join her on her Industrial Workers of the World speech and fundraising campaigns.

Who is actually responsible for the police officer attack, and why, makes for some political plot twisting intrigue and some difficult choices for the younger of the Dolan brothers.

But, to imply “Millions” is a political book is to do it a disservice. As much as politics weaves its way throughout the story, Walter, with his flashback narrative style, devotes most of the book to the complex relationships between family, unionists, scrupulous politicians and the early stages of equal rights. His ability to intersperse real-life figures into his historical fiction is as authentic as his wonderful prose, telling an American tale as relevant in 2020 as its 1909 setting.

Prose that includes, when writing of Gig and Rye and other tramps, “… they floated in from mines and farms and log camps, filled every flop and boardinghouse, slept in parks and alleys and the pavilions of traveling preachers and, on the night just past, this abandoned ball field, its infield littered with itinerants, vagrants, floaters, Americans.”

In a recent virtual book talk sponsored by the Cuyahoga County Library, I asked Mr. Walter how difficult it is to write a sentence of 40-plus words, complex in form, but simplistic in delivery, that so perfectly captures an American population. “I can start writing when I can hear the melody of the thing I’m writing, and that’s a melodic sentence. I feel like the rhythm and sound of it kind of tell you what is going on,” Walter said.

“This is probably embarrassing, but (while writing) I’ll move myself, and you write something like that out of real emotion. You try to make the sentence fit melodically but also to mean exactly what you want; words that connect in that way,” he added.

Filled with the melodic writing Walter speaks of, and a cast of memorable characters that run the gamut of evil to the innocent, “Millions” is a vibrant and, often, educational tale. While “Beautiful Ruins” might be the better of the two novels, Walter’s return to historical fiction is not a formulaic one. To keep the plot moving as fast as the trains the hobos jump on throughout the book, in many instances, he puts his readers ahead of the story, and then goes back, filling in the pieces in chapters devoted to first-person character narration.

As Rye narrates the closing chapters of the book, he states, “After that (story) come the memories, and these swirl for days afterward.” Just like accompanying George and Lennie in their travels throughout “Of Mice and Men” and the depression riddled Soledad, CA, the journey through the west and Spokane, Wash. in “The Cold Millions” is a scenic one. At times, it reads like a Western of old, some alien place, with the headlines pulled from, and as relevant, as today.


Loading next article...

End of content

No more pages to load