“No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader.”— Robert Frost
All About Me
In 1877, twenty Irish coal miners hanged for a terrorist conspiracy that never occurred. “Anywhere But Schuylkill” is the story of one who escaped, Mike Doyle, a teenager trying to find a new home before his alcoholic uncle kills one of his siblings. He takes a job with a union leader, who is also a gangster, while secretly courting his daughter, and quickly learns that the gang leader, cops and rival gang all want him dead.
Michael Dunn writes Working-Class Fiction from the Not So Gilded Age. “Anywhere But Schuylkill,” is the first in his Great Upheaval trilogy. A lifelong union activist, he has always been drawn to stories of the past, particularly those of regular working people, struggling to make a better life for themselves and their families. Stories most people do not know, or have forgotten, because history is written by the victors, the robber barons and plutocrats, not the workers and immigrants. Yet their stories are among the most compelling in America. They resonate today because they are the stories of our own ancestors, because their passions and desires, struggles and tragedies, were so similar to our own.
When Michael Dunn is not writing historical fiction, he teaches high school, and writes about labor history and culture. His labor history has been published in several online and print magazines. He also enjoys reading. Some of his favorite writers are: Flannery O’Connor, Toni Morrison, John Dos Passos, Victor Serge, B. Traven and John Steinbeck, as well as contemporary writers like Jess Walter, Wiley Cash, Wu Ming, Roberto Bolano, Arundhati Roy and Isabel Allende.
To learn more about Michael Dunn, the world of his characters, or to read his labor history blog and social media posts, please visit his website.
My HP Books
In 1877, twenty Irish coal miners hanged for a terrorist conspiracy that never occurred.
“Anywhere But Schuylkill” is the story of one who escaped, Mike Doyle, a teenager trying to find a new home before his alcoholic uncle kills one of his siblings. He takes a job with a union leader, who is also a gangster, while secretly courting his daughter, and quickly learns that the gang leader, cops and rival gang all want him dead.
Book Excerpt
Mike gazed down from the landing at Uncle Sean, asleep on the bench of a muddy buckboard wagon, partially covered with a gray horse blanket, feet propped up and head tilted back like his throat was slit. Periodically he jolted upright, as if his snores were seizing him by the collar to yank him awake. Each time he slumped drowsily back into that same twisted-up position, as his two oxen nibbled weeds and swatted flies with their tails.
It was so peaceful with everyone still in bed. Nobody marching to work. No droning donkey engines or sputtering pumps. The air was sweet. Slightly minty. Clean.
A fresh, clean start in Shenandoah.
A tear trickled down Mike’s cheek. Better a lifetime here, with all its stink and black phlegm, without any minimum wage, than one without Da. If he had only lived, he would have found a job on the reconstruction crew despite being Irish. Probably would’ve found Mike one, too. If not, they would’ve spent their days together, setting rabbit snares in the Shawnee Flats, beneath a buttery half-moon, and the smell of cows and moist alfalfa. Maybe a little fishing, an afternoon swim, same as when he was little, when Da would come out of the water, sopping wet, and wring his long, ruddy beard over his head, like a sopping dishrag. For a moment, Mike thought he smelled river grass steaming on the exposed rocks, but then he realized it was an illusion. Just like the idea that an Irishmen could get a job on the reconstruction crew, when everyone was blaming them for the fire. Yesterday, Paddy’s da was found by the river with a bullet in his thigh. At least Mike’s family had somewhere to go, somewhere better than Avondale. Aunt Mary was Da’s big sister. She wouldn’t let anything happen to them.
Book Reviews
“The Banshees of Inisherin and 1917 are two of the best historical films I’ve seen in recent years, particularly the cinematography. Yet the visuals Michael Dunn creates in Anywhere But Schuylkill, are richer, more vivid, more imaginative, and more haunting and indelible than what I recall in those brilliant films. It’s like the author transports himself to each scene and brings to life each physical detail, each expression, each emotion, and each word of dialogue with the care of a Renaissance painter.”
—David Aretha, award-winning author of Malala Yousafzai and the Girls of Pakistan and Martin Luther King Jr. and the 1963 March on Washington.
*****
“In the tradition of Upton Sinclair and Jack London, Michael Dunn gives us a gritty portrait of working-class life and activism during one of the most violent eras in U.S. labor history. Anywhere but Schuylkill is a social novel built out of passion and the textures of historical research. It is both a tale of 1870s labor unrest and a tale for the inequalities and injustices of the twenty-first century.”
—Russ Castronovo, author of Beautiful Democracy and Propaganda 1776.
*****
“Michael Dunn has created the characters that bring the 19th Century's Mine Wars to life for today's readers. Anywhere but Schuylkill will remind readers of John Sayles and Tillie Olsen and the best in the long tradition of labor literature.”
—James Tracy, co-author of Hillbilly Nationalists, Urban Race Rebels and Black Power: Interracial Solidarity in 1960s-70s New Left Organizing
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