Joe Hill: A Biographical Novel

Rating:
Summary: Not even close to history just plain fiction!
Review: Stenger believes Hill is guilty from the start and tries to make him out to be a common criminal. While Joe is no choir boy the truth is stranger than fiction. Little is known of Hill's buddy Otto Applequist, but over the years more facts have been uncovered about this man's fascinating life. Not the ... son of a Swedish minister but one of many sons of a working class family. An immigrant who becomes disillusioned with the American dream after he finds, instead of streets paved with gold, only forests, mines, docks, and streets covered with the blood of his fellow workers. Not a romantic bandit, but a revolutionary who chose to use his death sentence to bring the cause of labor to the forefront. If you want a balanced book about him get Joe Hill by Gibbs Smith. "Don't Mourn - Organize!" - Joe Hill 1917

Rating:
Summary: Harrowing, controversial, engaging and deeply moving
Review: Wallace Stegner's novel attempts to strip away the layers of mythologycreated around songwriter, artist and organiser Joe Hill. Taciturn Swedish sailor,fervent Wobbly, possible murderer, victim of conspiracy and, ultimately, willing martyr - all these aspects of the legendary Trade Unionist are explored in an effort to get to grips with the "real" Joe Hill. Stegner has tried to penetrate the conventional IWW mythology around Hill, refusing to accept the simplistic interpretation of an innocent man fitted up by the law. Instead, the Joe Hill he writes of is human, multidimensional - possibly guilty but a flawed hero nonetheless. Stegner explores the creation of a martyr andthe creation of a myth. Reading the story of Hill adds a poignancy and human dimension to the formulaic elegies of folksong and syndicalist tradition.