Last Man Out: The Story of the Springhill Mine Disaster - Hardcover

Greene, Melissa Fay

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0151005591 ISBN 13: 9780151005598

Publisher: Harcourt, 2003

Synopsis

The deepest coal mine in North America was notoriously unpredictable. One late October evening in 1958, it "bumped" - its rock floors heaving up and smashing into rock ceilings. A few miners staggered out, most of the 174 on shift did not.

Nineteen men were trapped, plunged into darkness, hunger, thirst, and hallucination. As days and nights passed, the survivors began to hope for death by gas rather than from thirst. Above ground, journalists and families stood in despairing vigil, as rescuers brought out scores of the dead. The hope of finding life undergound faded and families made funeral preparations.

Then, a miracle: Rescuers stumbled across a broken pipe leading to a cave of survivors, then a second group was discovered.

A media circus followed. Ed Sullivan, then the state of Georgia, invited survivors to visit. Publicity, politics, and segregation sorted the men differently than they had ordered themselves. Underground, the one black survivor nursed a dying man; in Atlanta, Governor Marvin Griffin said: "I will not shake hands with a Negro."

If every great writer has one tale of peril, heroism, and survival, Last Man Out is Melissa Fay Greene's. Using long-lost stories and interviews with survivors, Greene has reconstructed the drama of their struggle to stay alive

About this title

About the Authors

Melissa Fay Greene's books, Praying for Sheetrock and The Temple Bombing, were National Book Award finalists, winning numerous other awards. Greene has written for the New Yorker, Newsweek, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Atlantic, and Life. She lives in Atlanta.

Melissa Fay Greene's books, Praying for Sheetrock and The Temple Bombing, were National Book Award finalists, winning numerous other awards. Greene has written for the New Yorker, Newsweek, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Atlantic, and Life. She lives in Atlanta.

From the Back Cover

Trapped a mile below the earth s surface, with scant hope of rescue, nineteen miners spent over a week without light, drink, food. This is the extraordinary story of their suffering, their courage, and their miraculous rescue.

Advance Praise for Last Man Out
"In Last Man Out, Melissa Fay Greene so captures the experience of being trapped in the absolute night of a failed coal-mine that you can almost see the pale beams of dying headlamps and taste the last sips of coal-laced drinking water. Having shared the experience, a sympathetic reader cannot help but marvel at the absurdity of the disaster's aftermath. This is a fine, harrowing, brutally detailed work that will make you savor daylight in a way you never have unless of course you're already a coal miner."
--Erik Larsen, author of Isaac's Storm

Praise for Praying for Sheetrock
"A monumental social history with implications that go far beyond the borders of a tiny coastal Georgia county. Through a combination of oral history and interpretive narrative, Greene has created a work of great drama, a chorus of voices that is both disturbing and inspiring."
--The Boston Globe

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Trapped a mile below the earth s surface, with scant hope of rescue, nineteen miners spent over a week without light, drink, food. This is the extraordinary story of their suffering, their courage, and their miraculous rescue.

Advance Praise for Last Man Out
"In Last Man Out, Melissa Fay Greene so captures the experience of being trapped in the absolute night of a failed coal-mine that you can almost see the pale beams of dying headlamps and taste the last sips of coal-laced drinking water. Having shared the experience, a sympathetic reader cannot help but marvel at the absurdity of the disaster's aftermath. This is a fine, harrowing, brutally detailed work that will make you savor daylight in a way you never have unless of course you're already a coal miner."
--Erik Larsen, author of Isaac's Storm

Praise for Praying for Sheetrock
"A monumental social history with implications that go far beyond the borders of a tiny coastal Georgia county. Through a combination of oral history and interpretive narrative, Greene has created a work of great drama, a chorus of voices that is both disturbing and inspiring."
--The Boston Globe

Edition details

• Publisher: Harcourt
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0151005591
• ISBN 13: 9780151005598
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352