Review: The Women of the Copper Country

The Women of the Copper Country by Mary Doria Russell
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It is fitting and appropriate to read this moving novel on Labor Day weekend, a time when we celebrate the contributions of the American worker. The Women of the Copper Country is set in Michigan at the beginning of the 20th c., in the copper mines near Lake Superior. This book deals with the struggle between the bosses and the laborers, the struggle for a living wage and dignity vs. profits and greed epitomized by automation and reduction of the workforce.

But the true focus of the novel, as the title says, is on the women, the unsung heroines who wanted "bread and roses". They marched and sang, but they also worked from before dawn until after dusk. Even when the men and the mines were idle, the women still had to care for children and cook supper and do the laundry and try to organize against injustice. They are the true leaders and the ones who bring change.

Mary Russell has once again written a luminous novel of ordinary humans in extraordinary circumstances. Just as in her best known work, The Sparrow, she captures the heart and soul of her characters and keeps the reader entranced with her fine and lucent writing. Ms. Russell doesn't write quickly, but she writes so beautifully that each novel is worth the wait.

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