Last man out : the story of the Springhill Mine Disaster / Melissa Fay Greene.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Greene, Melissa Fay.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Springhill Mine Disaster, Springhill, N.S., 1958.

Physical Description:

342 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 24 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Orlando, Fla. : Harcourt, [2003]

Summary:

The Deepest Coal Mine in North America was notoriously unpredictable. One late October evening in 1958, it "bumped" -- its rock floors heaving up and smashing into rock ceilings. A few miners staggered out, most of the 174 on the shift did not. Nineteen men were trapped, plunged into darkness, hunger, thirst, and hallucination. As days and nights passed, the survivors began to hope for death by gas rather than from thirst. Above ground, journalists and families stood in despairing vigil, as rescuers brought out scores of the dead. The hope of finding life underground faded and families made funeral preparations. Then, a miracle: Rescuers stumbled across a broken pipe leading to a cave containing survivors, then a second group was discovered. A media circus followed. Ed Sullivan, then the state of Georgia, invited survivors to visit. Publicity, politics, and segregation sorted the men differently than they had ordered themselves. Underground, the one black survivor nursed a dying man; in Atlanta, Governor Marvin Griffin said: "I will not shake hands with a Negro." If every great writer has one tale of peril, heroism, and survival, Last Man Out is Melissa Fay Greene's. Using long-lost stories and interviews with survivors, Greene has reconstructed the drama of their struggle to stay alive.

Contents:

1 The Thunder of Baritones 1

2 A World without Sun 11

3 Home of the Long Tides 23

4 The Bump 32

5 "What Am I Doing Here? What Am I Doing Here?" 45

6 "When a Miner Says It's Bad, Look Out" 52

7 A Dark Chaos 59

8 "If There Are Boys Alive, They'll Be Expecting Us" 70

9 "Oh Dear, Oh Dear, I Would Help You if You Was Caught" 76

10 In Black, White, and Silver 81

11 "There Has Got to Be a Way Out, Boys!" 88

12 No Hope Whatsoever 101

13 "It's Good Day to Him, I Reckon." 106

14 Hard Times 112

15 When Sleep and Waking Feel the Same 117

16 "What on Earth Will I Do without Him?" 123

17 The Lost Lovely Sky 128

18 A Malevolent Factory 134

19 "Ruther've Done Chicken Farming" 138

20 "You Know He's Bad People, but You Can't Help But Like Him" 143

21 Birthday Party 147

22 Day-Glo on Velvet 151

23 Good Night, Sweetheart 159

24 Could a Mouse Escape? 161

25 Unnecessary Humiliation 167

26 Percy's Brook 171

27 Gas Like a Night Nurse 176

28 The Boxer 180

29 A Particle of Light 185

30 Home Cooking 194

31 Last Man Out 203

32 That Lovely Fresh Air 209

33 You Ain't Got Me Yet 213

34 Between Hell and Nova Scotia 220

35 Angels, Angels 223

36 Wives and Husbands 229

37 The Singing Miner 237

38 The Richest, the Most Exclusive, the Most Inaccessible Club in the World 247

39 Sunlight 257

40 Man of the Year 278

41 "Seems Like a Fellow's Discouraged" 290

42 The Miners' Code 306.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [327]-332) and index.

ISBN:

0151005591

OCLC:

51297229

Online:

Publisher description