The Last Ballad by Wiley Cash

Ella Mae Wiggins (1900-1929) is an Appalachian Icon. She left her mountain home in Sevier County, Tennessee, to work in the textile mills in Gastonia, North Carolina, and there became a renowned labor organizer, known for her ballad singing and for advocating for inter-racial, militant, and progressive unionism.  Four of her nine children died from whooping cough. On September 14, 1929, an armed mob met union workers as they arrived to a meeting. The workers fled, but the car that Ella Mae Wiggins was riding in was forced to stop, and she was shot and killed in broad daylight witnessed by more than fifty people.  Five mill supervisors were charged in her murder, but they were acquitted after less than 30 minutes deliberation.  Now Wiley Cash, the New York Times bestselling author of A Land More Kind Than Home, has completed a biographical novel based on the life of Ella Mae Wiggins.  It is hard to imagine a writer more suited to this task. Cash grew up in Gastonia. He did his undergrad