Author Description

Novel of a pregnant girl from the North Carolina mountains, Ishma Waycaster, who left home to work in a mill town and found drabness and tragedy. In the mill town she becomes involved in union activity and a strike (modeled after the Gastonia Strike of 1929). Burke provides a remarkably honest portrayal of the conflicts between Ishma's sexual and emotional needs and her intellectual and political loyalties, and of the racial issues raised by the strike.