Barbara Kingsolver, Holding the Line Women in the Great Arizona Mine Strike, Faber and Faber Ltd, October 2024.

Thank you, NetGalley, for providing me with this uncorrected proof for review.

Barbara Kingsolver has written a non-fiction book that echoes the skill she demonstrates in her fiction. The preface is a wonderful insight into the author as well as her subject. Kingsolver’s future as a writer of impactful fiction is one of the joys to realise through this, one of her early works as a journalist. Here, we see the woman who has written so masterfully about issues while drawing the reader into a fictional world from which it is difficult to emerge unchallenged. Now, to the content of this non-fiction example of her work. The women portrayed in Holding the Line are engaging and confronting, at the same time as demanding awareness and empathy. They provide a valuable history of women’s contribution to this particular strike, while presenting a thoughtful understanding of the way in which so many women, their contributions unrecorded, may have contributed to industrial action.

Kingsolver sees the women’s stories as promoting hope, that they recognised that the goal should be seeking justice rather than revenge and their contribution to demonstrating that people who see themselves as ordinary can scale impregnable heights. She also has a word of warning – no-one is necessarily exempt from what happened during these women’s fight for justice.

Much, although not all, of the book comprises cases studies based around the women’s stories. They include the women’s history, their reasons for coming to Arizona’s copper mining area, their work and their relationships with other women, their families, the management of Phelps Dodge. Details of the strike action, and the impact on these women, and their families, the fraught discussions about what they should do as the strike continued are covered. Media coverage of the strike conveys so well the anti-union context in which the strike and its continuation took place. Why the strike action took place is a central question that Kingsolver raises and the argument she develops is powerful, historical, and layered with context. The outcome of the action, compensation, and lack of it; and accountability for the responses and judgements are covered at the end of the book – making it both a heartening and disheartening read.
The bibliography comprises books, journals and newspapers and films (Norma Rae, With Babies and Banners, Harlan County and Salt of the Earth). The index topics provide some pointers to the breadth of the material – naming of a wide range of unions; arsenic fumes and lung damage; “Bread and butter unionism”; women’s name; Children and the impact of parents’ arrests; contracts and no contracts; Christmas celebrations; excessive show of force; evictions from company housing; Civil Rights Suits; International support; women on picket line; support system for strikers; National Guard; politicians; Racial equality issue; divorces; solidarity and self -interest; and women’s movement. And of course, many more.

For me, Holding the Line Women in the Great Arizona Mine Strike was more than an excellent analysis of the Arizona mine strike. I saw the film, Harlan County, and it has stayed with me – it was heartbreaking. But, like this book, it gave women a principal place, not only on the picket line, but in their domestic environment. The intercutting of one of the women in childbirth and a man being brutalized was a poignant reminder of the way in which the political is both public and private. Kingsolver has embraced this so deeply in her book. It is indeed a powerful read.

A really fascinating account of a subject I knew nothing about, being from the UK.

I loved how Kingsolver took care to present the women's perspective and can completely see how this would have been a passion project for her at the time.

Barbara Kingsolver being one of my favourite authors, I was interested to see a new title by her and keen to read it. In fact she explains that it is the first book she wrote, about a subject I had never heard about. I was a teenager growing up in South Africa in the 1980's and my life and interests far removed from the Arizona copper strikes, which is where this account takes place.

I wasn't sure the subject was something that could hold my attention, but this vivid and detailed record about of group of women 'holding the line' against a huge American mining corporation was well written and the women's personal stories captivating.

Kingsolver gets to know these women and develops a relationship with them. What held my attention throughout was not only the political consequences of the strike, but how their lives change in so many ways - socially, emotionally and traditionally. They discover aspects of their lives
and personalities that they could never have imagined in the face of serious hardship and economic conditions, with both positive and negative outcomes. Their voices come through strongly and they are a testament to what women are capable of, collectively as well as on an individual level.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book; it is more about how women can survive injustice and it is very inspiring and uplifting.

With thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

'I watched lives being transformed in obvious and compelling ways, as women who initially described themselves as 'just housewives' became campaigners, renegades, community leaders, martyrs and heroes'.

Hours away from both Phoenix and Tuscon, Arizona lay three small, insular mining towns effectively controlled by the copper mining company Phelps Dodge. Their power and control thrived upon taking advantage of minorities, gender bias and woeful health and safety practices. However, in these towns of limited opportunities, most employees simply made do, in between 3 yearly contract negotiations. In 1983 though, Phelps Dodge decided there would no negotiations -only be capitulation. This pulled the trigger on a strike that would last for 18 months and ultimately the demise of unions. As men walked off in protest, a court injunction kept them from the picket lines, leaving the women to 'hold the line'. What resulted was a revolutionary change within the community and the women themselves. Women who had previously limited social lives without the presence of their husbands suddenly found a camaraderie and a voice. They found their value in the face of arrests on trumped up charges, guns pointing at them, and tear gas thrown as more than 400 State Troopers and the National Guard converged to quell the turmoil.

Working as a journalist, Barbara Kingsolver covered the action. Beyond the facts of the events, Kingsolver wanted to understand the women so bravely holding the line. What she uncovered was more than just a strike for workers' pay and rights but an entire education and movement, 'This is a change for everybody, but especially us'.

This story will interest non-fiction readers with an interest in social change and labour movements as well as those who follow women's rights and social anthropology in general.

'I didn't invent these women; they invented themselves'.

Holding the Line: Women in the Great Arizona Mine Strike of 1983 is an evocative account of a pivotal labour struggle in American history, focusing on the overlooked role of women. This book combines journalism, oral history, and political analysis to highlight the remarkable contributions of the wives, daughters, and women miners who fought alongside their male counterparts during the 1983 strike against the Phelps Dodge Corporation in Arizona.
Set in the small copper mining towns of Clifton and Morenci, Barbara Kingsolver tells the story of how the strike became a turning point in the labour movement, particularly for women. After the Phelps Dodge Corporation sought to cut wages and end benefits for unionized workers, miners went on strike. However, as tensions escalated, many of the miners faced court injunctions preventing them from continuing on the picket lines. It was the women who stepped up, taking over picket duties and organizing protests, effectively holding the line when the men could not.
Holding the Line focuses on the personal and emotional toll of the strike on families, as well as the transformation of these women from housewives to activists. Barbara Kingsolver weaves together the personal testimonies of these women, revealing how they not only had to fight against a powerful corporation but also against the deeply ingrained sexism within their communities and unions. Their courage and resilience, driven by their desire to protect their families and communities, is awe inspiring.
Barbara Kingsolver’s writing throughout the book is vivid and empathetic, capturing the daily struggles of the women, their evolving sense of empowerment, and the solidarity they built with one another. She also contextualizes the strike within the broader labour and feminist movements, highlighting the systemic inequalities faced by women and workers in general. Through meticulous research and intimate storytelling, Barbara Kingsolver illustrates how the strike was not just about labour rights but also about the fight for dignity and justice in a male dominated world.
Holding the Line is an inspiring and is a very thought provoking account of the labour struggle that is as much about class and gender as it is about workers' rights. Barbara Kingsolver’s ability to give voice to the women who played such a critical role in this strike. This book is a must read for anyone interested in labour history, women's rights, or the dynamics of social movements.
Thank you to NetGalley and Faber and Faber for providing me with an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

This is Barbara Kingsolver's first book about the time she spent over the course of a year with the wives and relatives of miners who were on strike in The Phelps Dodge copper mine and mill in Arizona from 1983-86. The mining company basically owned absolutely everything in the town and the strike became an important part of American labour history. The strike resulted in the replacement of most of the striking workers and decertification of the unions which had a huge knock on effect on the crack down on unionisation through out the U.S. During the strike many of the men had to leave and go elsewhere to find work so the women had to "hold the line." They endured immense deprivation and the dissolving of their community. It is an interesting book about a subject I knew little about in America and it drew comparisons in my mind with the miners strike and other strikes here in the UK during the same period. It's by Barbara Kingsolver so it is very well written.

I didn’t realise this was a non-fiction book and not my usual genre because of this. However the subject matter was something I knew nothing about so I did find it an interesting read.

Holding the Line (1989) was the first book Barbara Kingsolver tried to write, although her novel The Bean Trees would come out first. As a freelance journalist in southern Arizona in her early twenties, she found herself tasked with covering the Phelps Dodge copper mine strike, travelling between different mining towns where her Nissan pickup made her immediately conspicuous ('they looked me up and down and asked if I belonged to that little Japanese truck. I replied defensively that it was put together at a plant in Tennessee'). Between 1983 and 1984, workers at the Morenci, Ajo, Bisbee and Douglas mines walked out after Phelps Dodge, unlike other Arizona mining companies hit by the downturn in copper, tried to force pay and benefits cuts. Kingsolver foregrounds the voices of the women affected by the strike - wives of miners who held the picket line after a legal injunction and then the need to search for work meant the men couldn't hold it themselves, but also women who worked in the mines in the face of violent misogyny and, in the case of Mexican-Americans, racism.

Kingsolver does a stellar job of capturing the realities of living in a remote settlement in desert and near mountains, where nobody locks their doors, which is suddenly confronted by 'four hundred armed state troopers, armoured personnel carriers, Huey helicopters, and seven units of the National Guard' in the case of Clifton alone. The women's individual stories of work are often compelling. Mary Lou started in the mine as a powerhouse pumpman in 1978, operating air compressors, blowers and pumps that if handled wrong could make the furnaces explode: the men were no help, so she read a manual to learn the job. Shirley was forced to do the menial job of cleaning ash pits even though she should have been promoted to driving trucks; the foreman told her he sent her there 'so I can have you right under my thumb'. She was badly burned in 1979 after a furnace did blow up when it was fed with damp concentrate (copper ore that's been processed to contain more copper).

Where Holding the Line falters is its ability to tell a bigger story from weaving together all of these small ones. There's no sense of direction, and I found myself completely lost as I tried to determine how the strike had actually played out and what had happened when. It does feel like a lot of shorter pieces strung together, which makes sense given that Kingsolver had been working as a journalist and this was her first attempt at long-form, but it meant that the book didn't hold my attention and I found myself skimming. Maybe this was partly because it felt too much like work to me - the compare/contrast with the British miners' strikes of 1984-5 was fascinating, as well as the close accounts of manual industrial work reminiscent of the research I've done on shipbuilding in postwar north-east England - but I didn't really want to read this for fun. However, I think Kingsolver was still figuring out how to structure a narrative here, and this great material suffers for it. I'm glad to see this published for the first time in the UK, though. 3.5 stars.

This is a reprint of Kingsolver's very first book, which is nonfiction and was written after a series of newspaper assignments sent her to cover the Phelps Dodge copper mining strikes in Arizona. A huge story at the time (the late '80s), I'd never heard of the strikes at all (I was born in '92 on the East Coast). Kingsolver returned to the strike towns after filing her stories to gather material from the women on the front lines: wives and girlfriends and daughters of male miners, but also women who had fought hard and long to gain the rights to work in the mines themselves. Much of the tension in the towns sprang not only from whether you chose to strike or not, but from the strongly Hispano-Catholic culture of the area. Some families could trace their ancestry in the neighbourhood back to before it was American soil, and the role of women in the culture was largely domestic and traditionally nurturing, even forty-five years ago; it was a real revolution for women to take such an active hand in politics. Kingsolver lets many of the women speak in their own words, and paints an inspriring picture of how labour activism has changed the world of these small towns—and the wider world, too. If I had one criticism, it would be that I was never totally clear on the chronology of the strike, which lasted for nearly two years, but that's a minor problem given that I can look up those facts on Wikipedia. I'd strongly recommend this for viewers of the film Pride, which covers the Welsh miners' strike at roughly the same time in Thatcher's Britain and which also emphasises the empowerment and authority that strike gave to women.

In 1983 a group of miners went on strike for eighteen months in the small mining towns of Arizona. This is not the story of the men but of the women, who were both workers at the mine and supporters because of family connections. Kingsolver allows the women to tell their story, their struggle, and their commitment to seeking justice. Not only did they endure an 18 month long strike but they had to overcome and rebuild after a flood devastated the area.

Phelps Dodge Copper Corporation in 1983 and the union clashed over the negotiation of a new contract. Not being able to resolve the matter to their satisfaction Phelps resorted to a series of tactics that included bringing in ‘scab’ workforce and intimidation of the strikers. The strikers remained steadfast, despite a natural disaster that destroys the community and harassment by the National Guard and police.

As a person not from the US, it was a surprise to me that a company owned a town, from the housing, the supermarket, the library, the police, everything in that town they owned. It was however, not a surprise, as to how Phelps would use that ownership as leverage to manipulate and coerce.

This is a complex story to follow as there are many moving elements leading up to and during the strike. You have the inherent racism against the Mexicans, the misogyny against the women and the inequality of conditions and wages. You have the machinations of the unions, companies and state and federal agencies that either assisted or impeded any progress to resolution. Kingsolver is masterful in laying out all these moving parts so that you do not feel overwhelmed in trying to ascertain all the major players.

Kingsolver then brings you into the world of people and the remarkable women and their journeys who bore the brunt of the strike action. For what does get lost in the endless media reporting is the impact it has on the ordinary person. You often see the Ceo’s, the union bosses in front of the camera talking about negotiations, outcomes, turnover and productivity. What is always is missing is the ordinary person trying to survive the impasse. The men, the women and the children who are caught up in a situation where they often have limited agency for change.

Kingsolver takes a deep dive into two groups of women who were involved in the strikes. First you had the women who worked in the mine who were subjected to the most horrendous sexual harassment and demeaning treatment. Then the women who supported their husbands on strike. Initially they were in the background, cooking, supporting the family, waving a placard here and there but they soon came to the fore front. When the two groups of women merges, they become the front line, the leaders of the strike and an absolute force to be reckoned with.

I want to be a tad coy here, as I do not want to reveal any details of the experiences of the women. As part of the journey in ‘Holding the Line’ are the revelations of what occurs and how the women deal with the situations. Plus reading their words makes it extremely powerful and all so real.

This book was first published in 1989 and has been re-issued in 2024 with a new introduction and a revised first chapter. It is an amazing book that documents how women just did just not survive but demonstrated amazing courage and determination to continue against overwhelming adversity.

Didn't know Barbara Kingsolver wrote non fiction too.
Appreciated her bringing to life women's experience in the 1983 mine strike with Unions & the National Guard. Barbara really brings people life experiences in her regional of USA to life, her interviews for Demon Copperhead really showed why she writes, to educated others of the life challenging re poverty and government and companies power and control.
Sadly I love Barbara's novels, as she brings the characters to life, I still miss Demon. Appreciate she stated she knew the women involved in the strikes, but she didn't reflect on their characters in this Mon fiction, as we all love in her novels.
Maybe non fiction is just not for me.

At the time she began reporting on the strike at the center of this book, Kingsolver was a science writer and trying to branch out into freelance journalism. She got some assignments to cover the strike and found herself increasingly aware that it was the women that were holding the line and keeping things together. Partly this was because in the company town, there was no other work so the men had to go elsewhere for employment. The women banded together and discovered new ways to support one another as well as new insights about themselves and what they were capable of. It's a powerful story with relevance today. As I was reading about how outraged people were about what the company (Phelps Dodge copper mines in Arizona) and their government (state and federal) were doing to them, and commenting on how it wasn't anything they thought could happen in the USA, I was reminded of the people who told me the same thing about the current situation in the country. I suspect the women in this book are not at all surprised.

This is an important contribution to labor history, women's history, and history in general. The realities of the strike and the women's experiences were not what was reported on in national media at the time. This chronicle provides a welcome corrective and allows readers to hear from the women themselves about what they were experiencing and feeling as things were unfolding and in the aftermath. Lives were changed in ways positive and painful. It's a good read as well--Kingsolver is a gifted writer who was genuinely interested in these women and their lives. The oral history methodology was an excellent choice for this topic.

This compelling true story chronicles the remarkable efforts of a group of women who rallied to support the mine workers' strike against Phelps Dodge in Arizona during the 1980s.

Predominantly Hispanic, these women had been traditional homemakers and mothers. However, when their husbands went on strike, they rose to the occasion to support one another and their community. Faced with legal restrictions that barred the strikers from continuing their protest, it became the responsibility of their wives to uphold the strike.

The narrative presents a fascinating yet harrowing depiction of a modern company town. Phelps Dodge exercised extensive control over local stores, owned all the housing and the hospital, and effectively dominated the police and judicial system. This power allowed the company to manipulate public perception and actively work to dismantle union efforts within their mines. It is shocking to realize that such events occurred in the 1980s rather than the 1920s, underscoring the ongoing struggles for workers’ rights.

http://thesecretbookreview.co.uk

I had no idea that the acclaimed novelist Barbara Kingsolver's writing career started with a non-fiction book about the women of the 1983-86 Arizona Miners' Strike. Kingsolver, a journalist at the time, had initially planned to write a short article covering the strike as it was happening, but ended up visiting Clifton and Morenci for another 18 months, collecting testimonies from the women of the strike during the developing situation. This is the book's first publication in the UK, but it was originally published in 1989 in the USA (which I hadn't realised when I requested the book, I thought it was a new book). It does have a new introduction, contextualising the project 35 years on and giving a sense of Kingsolver's priorities and her unapologetic support for the strike. If you have read the book before, I wouldn't purchase it just for the new material.

This is my first Kingsolver, although I would quite like to get to Poisonwood Bible at some point. I learned some things from this book, but overall I thought the fascinating material would have shone more if it had been arranged by a more experienced author. Kingsolver is the first to say that this is not a very analytical book, and the introduction recommends some academic studies of the subject. If you want to learn about the strike, I would pick up those. Kingsolver is not very good at telling the story of the strike in an accessible way - by the end of the book, I couldn't even work out what actually, factually happened to the strike and how it ended. I had to google it to realise that the strike essentially failed and had a detrimental effect on trade unions (Kingsolver painted a particular moment at the end of the strike which resulted in massive job losses as some sort of a cathartic victory for the women). Regardless of one's arguments in relation to the strike, the more analytical material could have been laid out much more clearly.

I really appreciated some of the insights, both the author's and the strikers'. The extent of corporate control in these mining towns read like something out of a dystopian satire to me (literally 'Spacers' Choice' energy for The Outer Worlds fans among you, that game is NOT a satire in the slightest). The company is the only employer, they control the monopolist overpriced shops, they control the only avaiable hospitals and pay the doctors to declare post-injury workers fit, the whole lot. Capitalism on steroids. It was interesting to see the changing gender models and behaviours. It was fascinating to see the repetitive refrain of 'we didn't expect this level of brutality and oppression here, in the USA, it is not Russia' (as someone originally from Russia, I am always interested in such comparisons). Kingsolver did quite a good job of discussing Mexican-American, specifically Arizonan, identity, central to the story (a recap - the Mexican-Americans here inhabited this land when it was conquered by the USA, they are not immigrants, and they were displaced from their land and farms, left with no choice but to work for the mines). The book also opens up a window into a world of rapidly internationalising women, whose awareness of the wider world and crises in South Africa and Nicaragua grew as a result of the strikes.

The chapters are sort of chronological, with some thematic analysis built in. I respect that as a structure, but for it to succeed Kingsolver needed to do a bit more work to establish the individual women whose lives she followed as characters (yes, nonfiction books also have narrative structure and characters). As she uses quotes from a large number of women all mixed together, it is hard to get a sense of these women as individuals and connect to their stories. It just becomes a rather repetitive chorus of quite similar-looking testimonies, which I personally got bored of by about the 50% mark. There is absolutely fascinating material in there, it just does not get sign-posted. Although Kingsolver provided a lot of context and representation for the Mexican-Americans she interviewed, far less context was provided for the Indigenous miners. She interviewed some of them, but there is nothing in the book about Indigeneity, Indigenous identity or the issues specific to the Indigenous people (eg their relationship with the Mexicans, descendent from people who colonised them in the first place). I also wish she had interviewed some of the women who supported the company and opposed the strike. She does talk about their movement, but it is completely an outsider's perspective. I appreciate positionality issues here. Kingsolver explains in the introduction that one could not be a 'neutral' observer and gain enough trust to actually obtain the material she obtained, as one's political views absolutely affected the levels of trust in the community. However, I wish she's at least tried to provide a deeper picture to understand the strike and all the women of the town better (even if she despises some of them).

Overall, the material is fascinating, I hope Kingsolver deposits the original recordings in some archive. However, the execution could have been more streamlined and better edited,

Thank you, NetGalley and Faber&Faber, for an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.