The Cold Millions audiobook

While this is only the second novel by Jess Walter that I have read, he has found that place in my literary heart reserved for writers whose every novel I want to read so I’ve just added several of his other books to my to read list. Mostly it’s because the writing is so impeccable that I am compelled to reread some sentences so I can experience that wow feeing again. It’s also because this is historical fiction at its best, reimagining a time, a place, events that really happened with a cast of characters, some real and some fictional, the have and have nots, the honest and the crooked, some impassioned by a cause, others motivated by greed, some who just want a home, a normal life, but who all elicited an emotional response from me. None more than one of the protagonists, sixteen year old Ryan Dolan.“It was too much. All of it, too much, and Rye cried at the too-muchness of it. This incredible room of books — how he wished Gig could spend a single day in such a room, two stories of leather and gilt volumes and a heated floor and brandy so sweet and rich it coated your insides....The unfairness hit Rye not like sweet brandy but like a side ache —a physical pain from the warmth of that chair...But now he knew, and he would know the next time he was curled up in a cold boxcar, that men lived like this, that there was such a difference between Lem Brand and him that Brand should live here and Rye nowhere....All people, except this rich cream, living and scraping and fighting and dying, and for what, nothing, the cold millions with no chance in the world.”Walter takes the reader to the landscape of those times in the early 20th century in the Northwest, where two young brothers Rye and Gig are on road. With their family gone, they struggle to survive, finding work when they can, a meal when they can, and a place to rest their heads. They find themselves caught up in the struggle of the Labor movement, mixed up with a corrupt mine boss, an equally vile retired Pinkerton, in the middle of violence that ensues. But their lives are also touched by friends such as Jules, a Native American, one of my favorite characters and by Ursula the Great who sings and dances in a cage with a cougar, by Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, the real life famed activist in the labor movement among other causes . It’s one of those books that offers so much - a great story reflecting a slice of history, a coming of age story in some ways. It’s filled with captivating characters, friendship, the depth of brotherly love. I can’t recommend it enough. I received a copy of this book from HarperCollins through Edelweiss.

What was it about these steep, western, water-locked cities, Seattle, Spokane, San Francisco? All three I’d visited, and in all three, the money flowed straight uphill. It made me think of something I’d heard about the Orient, that water drained the opposite way there. Who wanted to live in a pla

I chose to listen to Jess Walter’s “The Cold Millions” narrated by an amazing cast: Edoardo Ballerini, Gary Farmer, Marin Ireland, Cassandra Campbell, MacLeod Andrews, Tim Gerard Reynolds, Mike Ortego, Rex Anderson, Charlie Thurston, and Frankie Corzo. It is the cast that provided this historical fiction story with the depth and richness of the saga of a turbulent time in America’s history. Walter embeds historical figures in his creative story which lends the reader to research the figures and events highlighted in the story.The story is anchored by two vagrant brothers, Rye and Gig Dolan. Gig is twenty-three and idealistic, wanting a better world for the working man. Rye is only sixteen and wants a steady life since he’s living a life of poverty and uncertainty. The boys get mixed up in a “new” workers union, the IWW (Industrial Workers of the World) and the 1909 Spokane Washington free speech fight. Both men end up jailed, and Rye gets sprung as a result of (the true historical figure) feminist Elizabeth Gurly Flynn’s influence. Walter must have enjoyed writing his creative depiction of Gurly Flynn. He used actual events to moor his story and added very colorful events and speeches. Gurly figures prominently in this story. After listening to the story, I researched Flynn, and didn’t realize what an historical impact she had on our country. She was born in 1890, and at the tender age of 16 she gave her first speech to a Harlem Socialist Club entitled “What Socialism Will Do for Women” (she was expelled after her speech). That little historical bit is not in the novel, although after reading how Walter used her character in his story, I am not surprised. Walter captures the time in American history well. He adds burlesque shows highlighting the women of such shows and how they survived the male dominated world. The police, who are both corrupt and some ethical are featured. The injustices to the working class and the brutality that was allowed at the time create a mesmerizing read.Innocent Rye is the story’s mainstay. He just wants to get his brother out of jail, and he wants to live a life of stability. Poor Rye is used as a pawn and stooge. He is earnest in his desire to be good. He is drawn to the politics of the IWW, but only in that it will help him get his brother out of jail.I highly recommend listening to the audible production of this fine novel. With all the various character voices, it allows the listener to create his/her own visual with the help of fine voices.

Boy, is this a good book!If I hadn't already been convinced that Jess Walter could write anything—a crime caper (Citizen Vince), a love story (Beautiful Ruins), short stories that range from heartbreaking to hilarious (We All Live in Water), a funny commercial literary novel (The Financial Lives of Poets), a nightmarish psychological story in the aftermath of 9/11 (The Zero), or a blatant literary writer's foray into money-making with a cop serial (Land of the Blind)—this complicated and highly dramatic but simply written historical novel about the beginning of the labor union movement in Spokane, Washington, and the nature of history, life and death, and war and peace writ transcendent would have convinced me.It's 1909 and two brothers, Gig and Rye Dolan, are living the hobo lifestyle when they get involved in an uprising and demand for free speech. Heads are battered, people die, and the chasm between rich and poor, haves and have-nots as well as the systemic unfairness that perpetuates all this feel quite modern. Whether Jess Walter is writing an aging Indian, a stripper, a mining magnate, a hit man, or a feminist activist suffragist who suffers from "first-degree aggravated empathy," character is pitch perfect. The novel is a rollicking ride through the kind of demonstration and uprising that characterize every event when people reach their limit, fed up with being "scurrying . . . ants at the feet of a few rich men" and can no longer tolerate the hypocrisy in the American promise of equality and liberty for all. The story takes us into the bull's eye moment when "the cold millions"—those who can barely make do—demand to be allowed to benefit from the fruits of their labor.The structure of this unpredictable epic is completely different from Walter's other works: first-person chapters that sparkle with character and sometimes laugh-out-loud humor or oofs of shock punctuate the third-person plot. But there is never a blip in the narrative line. Why?As I've said before, Jess Walter has writing chops! For a good time with a lot of learning on the side, read The Cold Millions.**Advanced reading copy provided by publisher.

In 2012, Jess Walter’s breakout bestseller, “Beautiful Ruins,” brought movieland hilariously and brilliantly to life. The story offered an enchanting vision of glamorous old wrecks — from Tinseltown to an Italian village to Richard Burton himself.But now, with his new novel, “The Cold Millions,” Walter attempts to bring that same verve to the pitiless realm of Spokane, Wash., in 1909. Where once he satirized the meretricious appeal of Hollywood, movie stars and reality TV, here he’s hunkered down with homeless workers, railway tramps and union organizers.The result should be an earnest historical novel about the brutal struggle for fair wages, but through the alchemy of Walter’s voice, “The Cold Millions” is a work of irresistible characters, harrowing adventures and rip-roaring fun. In a country of amnesiacs that observes Labor Day with all the energy of a repressed yawn, this story is a rousing celebration of the forgotten heroes who devoted their lives and shed their blood to ensure the dignity of American work. . . .To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:https://www.washingtonpost.com/entert...

For years, readers have mulled what it means to be a good writer versus a great writer so let me add in my two cents: a good writer creates a fictional world and a great writer makes it impossible to look away.With The Cold Millions, surely Jess Walter’s most ambitious book (and I’m a huge Jess Walter fan), this author lays claim to Great American Writer. Because this surely is a slice of America – the early 1900s where hobos, union agitators (Wobblys), tycoons, a red-haired vaudeville star, a shady police chief and on-the-make detectives comingle on the pages. Some are real – such as 19-year-old Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, an impassioned union organizer at a time when women were widely seen as nothing more but homemakers and baby-makers – and some are fictional, such as Dal Dalveaux and Early Reston, two Pinkerton detectives with fluid allegiances.Yet at the focus of the novel are two orphaned brothers, 16 year old Rye and his 23 year old brother Gig, and it is through their eyes that we are privy to the action. This forward-moving tale is punctuated by intervals in which first-person characters recite their own stories or takes of what is going on. Without spoilers, readers need to pay particular attention to these intervals; what Walter does with them becomes increasingly evident and astonishing.In addition to resurrecting a fascinating time of history, Jess Walter reveals social injustices that are timely today. It is no accident that both brothers are fans of Leo Tolstoy, who grew to believe that life is too complex and disordered and inherently unfair to ever conform to rules. As Rye evolves to recognize that whatever the little people do, there is a roomful of wealthy old men where everything is decided—and worse, that on some level, he wants to belong to that group—the story really takes on a new gravitas. “Beliefs and convictions, lives and livelihoods, right and wrong—these had no place in that room, the scurrying of ants at the feet of a few rich men.” This dichotomy never seems to be resolved.This is just a darn good book, with universal themes of brotherhood and love, rich and poor, loyal and self-serving, dreams and realities and more. It straddles the genres of swashbuckling adventure, social justice, and historical fiction. In other words, it’s a winner.

Genre: Historical FictionPublisher: Harper/CollinsPub. Date: Oct. 6, 2020“Millions” is a richly entertaining historical novel that reconstructs the free speech riots that took place during the creation of the labor union during the early 1900s in Spokane, Washington. The novel is jam-packed with real-life people such as the passionate, 19-year-old union organizer, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (known as the Rebel Girl), the young labor lawyer, Fred Moore, and many others. Historical fiction is my favorite genre because I must have been asleep in my school days. For me, there is nothing better than learning while being entertained. Did you know that back then, union activists were called Wobblys? Dare I admit that I never heard of The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)? Well, at least I did know who the union-busting Pinkertons were.The story reads like a John Steinbeck novel with strong shades of “Grapes of Wrath” and a hint of “East of Eden.” We meet two colorful Irish American brothers at ages twenty-one and sixteen. Like many other Americans in those years, they were anxious to work, but there was no work to be found. (Think of the 1954 movie, “On The Waterfront.” A century later but the same situation, where a hundred men are hoping to be randomly picked for a job that needs only a handful of workers). To eat, the brothers hop freight trains in search of employment. Once the job is finished, they move on to wherever else they think they might find work, fair pay, and decent treatment. The boys are considered hobos and unwanted vagrants who sleep, with the other unemployed, shivering on the cold ground under the nighttime sky. The cops usually beat and chase them out of town. The title of the book is referring to the millions who are poor and starving while the tycoons and the ungodly wealthy (in current days we refer to them as the 1% ) have no intention of sharing their wealth. There is a scene where the younger brother finds himself in the unusual position of being a guest in a millionaire’s house (spoiler: it is a set up). The boy cries seeing that such homes exist while he has no home at all. Written in pristine prose, “Millions” features an unforgettable cast of Native Americans, recent immigrants, crooked cops—complete with a real-life shady police chief—tramps, suffragists, socialists, madams, and murderers. Not to mention, Ursula the Great, a fictional vaudeville singer who performs with a live cougar. The dashing older brother has an ongoing sexual relationship with Ursula the Great. The shy younger brother has a crush on Elizabeth Gurley Flynn; told you that you would be entertained. At times, it can feel that the author has taken on too many isms, but it doesn’t detract from the story because all sorts of civil movements were going on in that period. In reading this novel, you too will get lost in a fascinating tale and may learn a thing or two about the Rebel Girl and other rebel voices of this time in American History, which sounds eerily like the America we know today. I received this Advance Review Copy (ARC) novel from the publisher at no cost in exchange for an honest review. Find all my book reviews at: https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...https://books6259.wordpress.com/https://www.barnesandnoble.com/review...https://www.facebook.com/martie.neesr...https://www.instagram.com/martie6947/https://www.pinterest.com/martienreco...\https://www.amazon.com/https://twitter.com/NeesRecord

In 1909, the city council of Spokane, Washington, issued an ordinance that banned public speaking on the city’s streets. Its goal was to silence union organizing activities by the IWW (International Workers of the World or wobblies). The Wobblies retaliated by launching the Free Speech Fight. On November 9th, soapboxes were erected throughout the city; IWW representatives would ascend, begin to speak, and promptly be hauled off to jail. Close to 500 unionists were incarcerated. Jess Walters recreates the pain and poverty that underlie this struggle in The Cold Millions, a compassionate work of historical fiction that examines workers' struggles in an age of extreme income inequality and political corruption. The story centers on two brothers Gig and Rye Dolan, who are living as vagrants, traveling through the west, searching for work, food, and shelter. Gig is an idealist and a romantic who wants to change the world, while his younger brother Rye is a skeptic who longs for a stable life. Both brothers become involved in the free speech fight and are incarcerated. Rye, who is just 16, is quickly released and travels with labor organizer Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (a real historical figure) on a trip to raise sufficient funds to hire Clarence Darrow to defend the jailed wobblies. Walters brings fictional and historical characters to life with humor and wit. The writing is lively, engaging, and immerses the reader in this chaotic period in American history. I highly recommend it.

Jess Walter's new book is terrific and, in my opinion, destined to be a classic. Reminiscent of Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, The Cold Millions documents a period of time in Spokane, Washington, in which the dividing line between rich and poor was about as profound as it is today, with the possible exception of today's ability to form labor unions without being beaten, robbed, jailed, murdered, or driven out of town on a rail. It follows the story of two brothers, Gig and Rye, who while loyal to each other, each pursue a different means to the end of survival. They begin as itinerant laborers who leap onto trains and catch rides to the next site of potential jobs but their paths deviate in Spokane with the jailing of Gig and the attempted heroism of Rye. The details of place are superlative and Jess Walter's ability to document a real world at the same time as he fictionalizes the characters within it is remarkable. It's quite an achievement.

Is there anything Jess Walter cannot write? Satire, black comedy, speculative, bleak contemporary, gentle comedy, literary suspense, straight-up historical fiction, creative non-fiction, investigative long-form. He is simply one of the most insightful, en pointe writers of contemporary American letters. A master, however humble and generous. And he's done it again with The Cold Millions.Set in Spokane, Washington in 1909, this is a classic history of the American West. The Cold Millions is based on real-life events and figures of the rise of labor unions in the Pacific Northwest, as seen through the eyes of a second-generation Irish orphan turned hobo, Rye Dolan. Rye and his older brother, Gig, ride the rails and follow seasonal work from their home base of Spokane, but when Gig is jailed after a free speech protest, Rye's isolated world expands to include a nationally-renowned teenaged suffragette, a vaudeville performer who sings like an angel but is known for her nightly sets with a live cougar, a hard-boiled gun for hire, a displaced Native American raised by a French-Canadian and a host of minor characters that make this story sing. The robust plot is set against the backdrop of a booming timber town on the edge of a prairie, where mansions and slums vie for dominance in a singular landscape of rivers and mountains.The Cold Millions is wonderfully old-fashioned, sepia-toned storytelling. It is deeply-satisfying, beautifully written, wise and magnificent. Highly recommended.

Okay. I liked it, but maybe at a different time I would have liked it more? For those who has HSP or other sensitive types it just felt like a lot with everything going on in the world. That aside I liked the writing style. The story kept me interested. I don't regret reading it one bit.

Published in the UK 18/2/2021 In the days after Gig left, Rye began to see that he was living in a particular moment in history. Maybe this was obvious to other people, but it had never occurred to him. It was a strange, unwieldy thought, like opening a book and seeing yourself in its pages. Seemingly unrelated events— meeting Early Reston at the river that day, the free speech riot, Ursula the Great taking him to meet Lem Brand, traveling with Gurley Flynn, smuggling her story out to Seattle, maybe even Gig’s disappearance—these moments seemed linked, like events leading up to a war. And he supposed that was what they were in, a war— this skirmish between the IWW and the city was part of a larger battle fought in a thousand places, between company and labor, between rich and poor, between forces and sides he wasn’t sure he had understood before. Part of this new perspective came from the fact that Rye was trying to read War and Peace in the evenings This sprawling novel manages to be simultaneously: An adventure/action book combining elements of the late-Western and early Detective/crime genres; An examination of a fascinating point in US history, in the years immediately prior to World War I as the battle for American labour rights took place – with the role of the International Workers of the World (the Wobblies) trying to establish a more radical and broad based representation of workers rights than the more conventional trade and industry based skilled craft unions; A fictionalisation of a real event – the Spokane Free Speech fight – a David and Goliath story of how a small group of radical, socialist activists attempt to mobilise itinerant workers/tramps and an underground press against industrial bosses, corrupt authorities and labour organisations more interested in exploiting the workforce – with anarchists looking to use the opportunity to push for more radical changes; A study of a remarkable figure – Elizabeth Gurley Flynn – perhaps seen as an early 20th Century Greta Thunberg albeit with a rather more cavalier approach to risking her own personal health and safety – and that of her unborn baby - in direct action; A coming-of-age story of a younger brother caught up in a series of events and with a cast of characters with much deeper repercussions and motivations than his own simple focus on survival and the next day – some of whom (like Flynn) inspire him but many of whom (including it has to be said Flynn) exploit his naiveite – this character (Rye) is effectively the main third party point of view character for the main linear part of the narrative; A book with a sweeping cast of remarkable and memorable characters – including: a ruthless Scottish-descended agency detective turned murderer-for-hire; a good looking down and out (Rye’s brother) with a penchant for alcohol, women and a half-volume of War and Peace; a vaudeville performer whose act culminates in a live mountain lion eating her bustier; a Spokane Indian with a penchant for storytelling and for laughter but with a hidden family-secret; a mysterious character who at different times seems an assassin/ a down-and-out/a double-agent/a provocateur aiming to prevent any de-escalation/an anarchist terrorist. Many of these characters (but very pointedly not the last) have their backstories told in separate first party sections which effectively break up the linear narrative – although which later serve to continue and expand it from other points of view. One of my questions on the book would be why a fictional Rye rather than a fictionalised Elizabeth is not the main character – but I think this is addressed in Elizabeth’s own first party section where she comments frequently on how the courts and authorities automatically assume there is a man or men “pulling my strings” and perhaps the author felt this would be too much like appropriation; A partial retelling of “War and Peace” – with Rye explicitly drawing on elements of that sprawling novel as analogies for understanding what he sees around him An examination of wealth divides at a time when a huge rise in American industry had lead to a massive divide between a group of the newly super-rich and their exploited and unregulated labor force – one of the pivotal parts of the book is when Rye visits the house of the local industrial magnate and conscious of his brother’s much loved half-copy of “War and Peace” is physically shocked when the magnates library contains an unopened and unread full set (see my closing quote)An analogy for 2020 – just as one example, Rye’s brother Gregory is known as Gig – a very obvious link between the world of unregulated labour of the early 1910s and that of 110 years later with the Gig economy; a second (which has struck me forcefully in the week I read this book) is respectable Americans using the “threat” of “socialism” as a justification for turning a blind eye to dark deedsOverall though I found it a very enjoyable and particularly worthwhile read - if very different from my normal literary fare.My thanks to Penguin General UK for an ARC via NetGalley. It was too much. All of it, too much, and Rye cried at the too- muchness of it. This incredible room of books—how he wished Gig could spend a single day in such a room, two stories of leather and gilt volumes and a heated floor and brandy so sweet and rich it coated your insides. The thought of his bookish brother in that stone jail while he was here—it was all just too much. The unfairness hit Rye not like sweet brandy but like a side ache…. he never could have imagined it, either. But now he knew, and he would know the next time he was curled up in a cold boxcar, that men lived like this, that there was such a difference between Lem Brand and him that Brand should live here and Rye nowhere. He flushed with sadness, as if every moment of his life were occurring all at once—his sister dying in childbirth, his mother squirming in that one-room op, poor Danny sliding between wet logs, Gig in jail, and Jules dead—and how many more? All people, except this rich cream, living and scraping and fighting and dying, and for what, nothing, the cold millions with no chance in this world

I wouldn’t necessarily have picked up this book based on the topic of the fight for worker’s rights in 1909 Spokane, Washington, but having read and thoroughly enjoyed Beautiful Ruins by this author, I was eager to give this a try. This historical fiction is centered around the early life of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, who played a prominent role in the International Workers of the World, later cofounded the ACLU, a who was dynamic speaker and feminist before her time. From that perspective, this was an interesting glimpse into that part of history that I was unfamiliar with. This is blended into the fictional story of two tramp brothers that get caught up in the intrigue between a rich mining magnate in the town who wants to tamp down the organized labor movement at any cost, and led by Gurley Flynn, the push to drive the movement forward.Like the other book I read by this author, this was beautiful written, drawing you deep into the story and making you care about the characters. Highly recommended!