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November 7, 2022
Kate Manning's Playlist for Her Novel "Gilded Mountain"
In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
Previous contributors include Jesmyn Ward, Lauren Groff, Bret Easton Ellis, Celeste Ng, T.C. Boyle, Dana Spiotta, Amy Bloom, Aimee Bender, Roxane Gay, and many others.
Kate Manning's talents as a storyteller shine in her novel Gilded Mountain, a book whose themes of equality and labor relations at the turn of the 20th century resonate strongly in today's world.
Publishers Weekly wrote of the book:
"Stellar... Manning shines at giving the era’s class, racial, and economic tensions a human face. This is one to savor."
In her own words, here is Kate Manning's Book Notes music playlist for her novel Gilded Mountain:
My novel, Gilded Mountain, is about an intrepid young woman caught up in the Colorado labor wars of the early 1900s, when workers earning pennies were fighting against millionaire industrialists for fair wages and a better life. Sylvie, the young protagonist, struggles to find her voice in a hostile climate. Living in a snowbound cabin in the mining town of Moonstone, Colorado, she’s confused by the attentions of two very different men and tempted by the luxury of the local manor house. Trained to swallow complaint and to keep her mouth shut, she risks a moment to speak out--then she must decide what to do to remedy a terrible injustice.
Our country grew increasingly divided in the years it took me to write the book. I was struck by similarities between the early 1900s and our times—not just in politics, but in music, too. Raging or satirical songs have always provided release or galvanized action. Music creates “solidarity forever.” Writing fiction, music is fuel.
The songs on this playlist are about work and protest from the 1910s to the 2010s. The first two on the list appear in Gilded Mountain. I found them in the Little Red Songbook, Songs to Fan the Flames of Discontent, published in 1908 by the Industrial Workers of the World. These protest songs fueled the labor movement of the early 19th century until it was crushed by the onset of World War I and ensuing Red-scare propaganda. Some of the old songs can sound overly earnest to modern ears, but they were rallying cries in their day. The modern ones are ragers and ballads and dance tunes.
The Banks are Made of Marble, Pete Seeger and the Weavers. Gilded Mountain is set in the fictional town of Moonstone, where a vast marble quarry is the only industry. Sylvie’s father works deep in the icy mountain, and when he sings this song, trouble erupts: “The banks are made of marble/ With a guard at every door/ And the vaults are stuffed with silver/ That the miner sweated for.”
Hallelujah, I’m a Bum, Utah Phillips’ recording of Harry McClintock’s song, about what happens when someone gets fired, which often happened—and still happens--to workers with union sympathies. It’s a flip of the middle finger to the bosses. In the novel, Sylvie’s father sings it to signal that the workers will not roll over and shovel 14 feet of snow off the rail track without getting paid for it. “Oh, I like my boss, he's a good friend of mine/ That's why I am starving out on the bread line.”
Wake Up, Rage Against the Machine. RATM is the master of the modern protest song. Tom Morello’s guitar is painted with the words, “Arm the Homeless,” an homage to Woody Guthrie, who painted his guitar with the message: “This Machine Kills Fascists.” Morello is a fierce ally of the labor movement and a member of the IWW. The wail of rage and pain at the end of this song is a plea for people to see truth. Ten times the refrain begs in a howling scream: “WAKE UP.” And then there’s this plaintive question: “How long? Not long. 'Cause what you reap is what you sow.”
Blue Sky Mine, Midnight Oil: Here’s a melodious song about miserable wages paid for hard labor and the callous attitude of bosses who want only profit. This song asks for respect and a decent living. “The company takes what the company wants/ And nothing's as precious/ as a hole in the ground/ Who's gonna save me?”
People have the Power, Patti Smith. The young protagonist of Gilded Mountain gets a fast education in the corruptions of money, and the power of banding together. After a tragedy, she decides to act. Patti Smith sings of such a moment: “My senses newly opened/ I awakened to the cry/ That the people have the power/ To redeem the work of fools. / Upon the meek the graces shower/ It's decreed the people rule/ The people have the power.”
Todos Somos Mexicanos. Emilio Estefan. A happy and defiant song celebrating Mexican culture in America. “We’re all Mexicans,” Estefan sings in English and Spanish. The song is a protest launched at negative images of Latinx immigrants in the US, which reminds me of the extreme prejudice against immigrants in the early 1900s. At the end of this song comes the cry, Viva America! Which makes it clear that we are all Americans no matter where our ancestors originated.
Borders, M.I.A. A song of questions about our current state of affairs. “What’s up with that?” she asks, about refugees, borders, politics, police violence, and beauty standards. “Your values? Your beliefs? What’s up with that?” The video for this song shows masses of people trying to scale fences, and crowded boats sailing in open seas.
Formation, Beyoncé. She wrote the song to “show the historical impact of slavery on black love, and what it has done to the black family, and black men and women—how we're almost socialized not to be together." The video for Formation won many prizes and ignited controversy, with some conservatives claiming it was anti-American. “Okay, ladies, now let's get in formation…” (which could be written as “let’s get information) Formation became a protest song for the Women’s March and the Black Lives Matter movement.
Sisters Are Doin’ it For Themselves, Annie Lennox with Aretha Franklin and The Eurythmics. In Gilded Mountain, Mother Jones, one of the most powerful labor leaders in US history, tells the women of the quarry town: “Beat the pots! If the women are strong, the men are too!” for decades, Jones rallied women in garment factories and textile mills and mining camps. One legacy of her era is—as the song says: Sisters are doin' it for themselves/Standin' on their own two feet and ringin' on their own bells. Sisters are doin' it for themselves.
The Ghost of Tom Joad, Bruce Springsteen with the E Street Band and Tom Morello: this performance of Springsteen’s song gives me chills. Springsteen was inspired by John Steinbeck’s Depression-era novel The Grapes of Wrath, as Steinbeck’s character, Tom Joad, struggles to achieve an American Dream denied by corporate greed. Joad’s ghost, Springsteen sings, haunts the homeless camps of today’s America. In a cardboard box beneath the underpass/You got a one-way ticket to the promised land/ you got a hole in your belly and a gun in your hand.
She Works Hard for the Money, Donna Summer. Donna Summer’s music was the radio soundtrack of my youth and still inspires dancing in the kitchen. The lyrics of this song make me think of Easter Davis, the chef in the manor house in Gilded Mountain. Easter commands respect and has plans for a better life, like the character in this song: “Onetta there in the corner stand. And she wonders where she is/ And it's strange to her/ Some people seem to have everything. /She works hard for the money/ so you better treat her right."
Bread and Roses, Joan Baez: The song is a plea of a woman hungry in her bones and her spirit. In Gilded Mountain, Sylvie sees her mother’s exhaustion and her attempts to create a little beauty in the midst of poverty. This hymn-like ballad is yet another appeal for human decency and fairness: “Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes. Hearts starve as well as bodies. Give us Bread, but give us roses.” This one might make your eyes well up. It does mine.
Kate Manning is the author of the critically acclaimed novels My Notorious Life and Whitegirl. A former documentary television producer and winner of two Emmy Awards, she has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times Book Review, Time, Glamour, and The Guardian, among other publications. She has taught creative writing at Bard High School Early College in Manhattan, and lives with her family in New York City.
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