What an amazing book! The setting and the characters are so beautifully written and even the “villains” in this book are thoroughly engaging. Highly recommended!

Although well written, I just couldn't get into this story...I must have set it aside and picked it back up at least five or six times over two weeks thinking I just wasn't in the mood for a historical novel. I even tried skimming ahead. For the right audience, this book will be great - it has polarizing politics, labor agitators, brutal anti-labor organization thugs, grifters and thieves, raw new cities, train hopping, settlement of new cities, et cetera. It was just not a book for me.

I loved beautiful ruins and The Cold Millions lived up to my expectations. The early twentieth century isn't a time period I have read extensively about, and Walter gave me the perfect slice of it. I loved the themes of brotherhood and sacrifice and this was truly a page turner, despite have depth. I highly recommend!

This novel is narrated mostly by a teenager in 1909 who is affiliated with the Wobblies, an important labor group, but we also hear the voices of a burlesque singer who performs with a mountain lion, a hardboiled detective who seethes with hatred for almost everyone, and an indigenous man who has lost many things, but still has a great heart. It's great historical fiction that is also hugely entertaining, and its focus on justice, injustice, and those who fight for both sides in this fight is entirely on point right now. I loved Jess Walter's Beautiful Ruins, but this is even better.

The Cold Millions satisfied both my desire for good historical fiction and for adventure and mystery fiction. I really liked learning about the union movement in that time and place and especially about Elizabeth Gurley Flynn.

American class struggles in the 1930’s beautifully told through the eyes of two brothers. Vivid characters, with a story that is a real page turner. I don’t think there is any kind of story that Jess Walter can’t write.

Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Harper/Collins
Pub. Date: Oct. 6, 2020

“Millions” is a richly entertaining historical novel that reconstructs the free speech riots that took place during the creation of the labor union during the early 1900s in Spokane, Washington. The novel is jam-packed with real-life people such as the passionate, 19-year-old union organizer, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (known as the Rebel Girl), the young labor lawyer, Fred Moore, and many others. Historical fiction is my favorite genre because I must have been asleep in my school days. For me, there is nothing better than learning while being entertained. Did you know that back then, union activists were called Wobblys? Dare I admit that I never heard of The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)? Well, at least I did know who the union-busting Pinkertons were.

The story reads like a John Steinbeck novel with strong shades of “Grapes of Wrath” and a hint of “East of Eden.” We meet two colorful Irish American brothers at ages twenty-one and sixteen. Like many other Americans in those years, they were anxious to work, but there was no work to be found. (Think of the 1954 movie, “On The Waterfront.” A century later but the same situation, where a hundred men are hoping to be randomly picked for a job that needs only a handful of workers). To eat, the brothers hop freight trains in search of employment. Once the job is finished, they move on to wherever else they think they might find work, fair pay, and decent treatment. The boys are considered hobos and unwanted vagrants who sleep, with the other unemployed, shivering on the cold ground under the nighttime sky. The cops usually beat and chase them out of town. The title of the book is referring to the millions who are poor and starving while the tycoons and the ungodly wealthy (in current days we refer to them as the 1% ) have no intention of sharing their wealth. There is a scene where the younger brother finds himself in the unusual position of being a guest in a millionaire’s house (spoiler: it is a set up). The boy cries seeing that such homes exist while he has no home at all.

Written in pristine prose, “Millions” features an unforgettable cast of Native Americans, recent immigrants, crooked cops—complete with a real-life shady police chief—tramps, suffragists, socialists, madams, and murderers. Not to mention, Ursula the Great, a fictional vaudeville singer who performs with a live cougar. The dashing older brother has an ongoing sexual relationship with Ursula the Great. The shy younger brother has a crush on Elizabeth Gurley Flynn; told you that you would be entertained. At times, it can feel that the author has taken on too many isms, but it doesn’t detract from the story because all sorts of civil movements were going on in that period. In reading this novel, you too will get lost in a fascinating tale and may learn a thing or two about the Rebel Girl and other rebel voices of this time in American History, which sounds eerily like the America we know today.

If somehow the late great Elmore Leonard and Patrick de Witt wrote a book together, it might well have been The Cold Millions. Dark, violent, yet sometimes laugh out loud funny, all of the characters have some level of sympathy and there are plot twists and surprises in just the right moments.

When I came across this description of food " ...and gnocchi that might have been pinched from the ass of an Italian angel," I picked up my pace hoping to find more great lines like this. And I did find more great lines. Walter's novel is filled with fabulous lines, history, and a terrific story line about two young brothers who take off jumping trains, joining unions, spending time behind bars, surrounded by both the worst and the most generous of humans, providing them with hope and grief on their tumultuous journey.

Outstanding writing and story! Rarely do I rate more than 4 stars and when my wife asked why 5...well, it was tough to explain. This historical narrative grips the reader quickly. The realistic characters, sure, some based on real people, drew me in and allowed me to feel connected in a way that was more than just reading. The plot moves quickly, although the timeline stays relatively short, and the twists and turns reward the reader's attention and connection. The epilogue feature allowed for the follow-up that many of us wish for and often only imagine. Spoiler alert-probably not a sequel in the future. In the end, Jess Walter's novel, informed, intrigued, and connected me with the overall human experience and that is what I think excellent writing can and should do-5 stars!

Boy, is this a good book!

If I hadn't already been convinced that Jess Walter could write anything—a crime caper (Citizen Vince), a love story (Beautiful Ruins), short stories that range from heartbreaking to hilarious (We All Live in Water), a funny commercial literary novel (The Financial Lives of Poets), a nightmarish psychological story in the aftermath of 9/11 (The Zero), or a blatant literary writer's foray into money-making with a cop serial (Land of the Blind)—this complicated and highly dramatic but simply written historical novel about the beginning of the labor union movement in Spokane, Washington, and the nature of history, life and death, and war and peace writ transcendent would have convinced me.

It's 1909 and two brothers, Gig and Rye Dolan, are living the hobo lifestyle when they get involved in an uprising and demand for free speech. Heads are battered, people die, and the chasm between rich and poor, haves and have-nots as well as the systemic unfairness that perpetuates all this feel quite modern. Whether Jess Walter is writing an aging Indian, a stripper, a mining magnate, a hit man, or a feminist activist suffragist who suffers from "first-degree aggravated empathy," character is pitch perfect. The novel is a rollicking ride through the kind of demonstration and uprising that characterize every event when people reach their limit, fed up with being "scurrying . . . ants at the feet of a few rich men" and can no longer tolerate the hypocrisy in the American promise of equality and liberty for all. The story takes us into the bull's eye moment when "the cold millions"—those who can barely make do—demand to be allowed to benefit from the fruits of their labor.

The structure of this unpredictable epic is completely different from Walter's other works: first-person chapters that sparkle with character and sometimes laugh-out-loud humor or "oofs" of shock punctuate the third-person plot. But there is never a blip in the narrative line.

Why?

As I've said before, Jess Walter has writing chops! For a good time with a lot of learning on the side, read The Cold Millions.

I wasn't a fan of Beautiful Ruins though I know many were; I wanted to give this one a try to see if this author might jive with me this time. Unfortunately not my particular cup of tea, but many will probably enjoy this.

Well, I loved Jess Walter's Beautiful Ruins, and had really high hopes for this, but it proved that I am not a big fan of historical fiction. The novel had a mix of real historical figures and fiction, and it felt somewhat overwrought to me. It did keep my interest, and I liked Rye, the main character. Also, I learned about a period in history that I had little knowledge of. I guess I just was expecting more. It did not have that special feeling.