Soot

Getty tells a compelling story of the Irish experience in the coal mines of eastern Pennsylvania. Bridie is a central character who will won your heart.

The author does a great job exploring the lives of coal miners, mining communities and women's lives in them in the late 1800's.

Although I found the story itself awfully depressing, it was well told.. And well researched

This hey good story of women i living in poverty in a coal mining industry

Excellent read. A page turner.

Interesting historical fiction

Good story, although there were too many deaths in this 268 page book. I am very glad that Bridie was able to leave her patch town behind her, travel to Washington, D.C., and start a new life, eventually finding a job working in a pharmacy in 1890 at the tender age of 24. I grew up in a patch town in Northeastern PA, so I am familiar with coal mines, outhouses, outdoor ovens for baking bread, neighbors talking in "broken English, etc. And not to be critical of the author, Ms. Getty, but I happen to live 4 miles from Eckley Miners Village, a patch town which at this time has been restored by the State of Pennsylvania, and it is located in Eckley, Pa., not Weatherly, Pa.

Every now and then, I have the pleasure of reading a first-class piece of fiction. That is certainly the case here. Mickey's narrative is unrelenting in its portrayal of the harshness of family life in the Pennsylvania hard-coal fields at the end of the nineteenth century. The focal character, Bridie O'Doyle, is shown to be a woman of extraordinary strength and perseverance, even as the mining industry methodically strips her of family and friends. She is also a character of intensely-focused hatred, directed at mining and railroad tycoon Franklin Gowen, whom she blames, rightly or wrongly, for the hardships she and her loved ones endure. At the end of the book, Mickey accomplishes a tour de force in her final development of the relationship between Bridie and Gowen. It's good to see the story of the Molly Maguire era in the anthracite fields, told largely from the perspective of a mother, daughter, wife, healer -- triumphant at the end. This is a worthy addition to the literature of the period.