And so it begins.
I was head-back, feet-up in the chair with a bright light shining in my eyes. The doctor, scalpel in hand, was leaning over me about to remove a basil cell carcinoma from my forehead. Not quite as vulnerable as being in stirrups at the gynecologist’s office, but still not an atmosphere that invites small talk.
“So, what kind of work do you do,” he asked.
Really? Maybe I should just tell him I’m retired and leave it at that. But no. “I’m writing a novel.” There’s never a full stop with that reveal. He asked what it was about and I immediately had regrets. I just wanted to grit my teeth and get this procedure over with. And I didn’t want to stunt the growth of my infant novel by turning it into surgery chatter.
But it was too late. I told him my debut novel was about a young sociologist from New York City, heading to the southern coal fields of West Virginia in 1992 to conduct a study of a struggling mining community. In addition to her professional goal of a peer-reviewed article published in a prestigious journal, she has ulterior motives, personal ones. Along the way, she encounters buried history, secrets, an other-worldly girl and a family tragedy that impacts an entire community.
He didn’t miss a beat while he sliced and diced my forehead. “I went to medical school with a fellow whose father was a miner,” he said. “You should speak to him. He’s a surgeon now, in Lexington, Kentucky, I think. I’ll reach out to him.”
And that was that. One of those throw-away comments meant to take my mind off the assault to my face. I didn’t give it another thought and was happy to scurry out of the office with a droopy eyebrow and a big bandage. Until, that is, two days later when I received a text from my doctor’s medical school buddy. The Lexington surgeon had already spoken with his father. They both agreed to talk with me.
And that’s how my last four years have been as I’ve gone down the rabbit hole, much like my sociologist character, learning about coal mining and discovering a labor uprising in 1921 (the largest armed insurrection in the U.S. since the Civil War) and wondering why I had never heard about it. My path kept bringing me to just the right people—descendants of this infamous battle, miners and their families, historians, archaeologists, authors. Even UMWA President Cecil Roberts. And they all shared their stories with me around kitchen tables, on porches, in union halls, in diners and, when the pandemic rose up, via Zoom.
After four years of following leads that led me into the interior of miners’ lives, I have completed my novel. And, since the universe was batting a thousand on my behalf, I invited the cosmic wonder to put me on the publishing path. While that request is working its way through the realm of possibilities, I’m chronicling some of my experiences here. Unpredictable, revealing and, ultimately, transformative.
Oh, and the Lexington surgeon’s coal miner father? That’s a story which I’ll go into later. But here’s a quick pic of Ray Wright (with glasses) and some of his UMWA COMPAC buddies, all retired miners, who embraced me and helped me gain insights into what it was like being a miner in West Virginia in 1992. Here, they are scouring the coal industry timeline I created to make sure I got it right. More about these bodhisattvas in another post.
Ray Wright (top left, glasses) with other retired miners, members of the United Mine Workers of America, at a Coal Miners Political Action Committee meeting that I was invited to attend in St. Clairsville, Ohio.