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

Melissa Fay Greene (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2003

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

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

On October 23, 1958, gases from deep within the earth shot skyward, causing entire floors of rock to rise instantly in a coal mine in Springhill, Nova Scotia, trapping 174 men underground. Seventy-five miners never made it out alive. Miraculously, two small groups of miners survived the initial "bump" but were sealed in small caverns deep within the coal. Surrounded by foul air and total darkness, and with precious little food and water, the men vacillated between optimism and hopelessness as they tried to maintain sanity amidst horrific conditions. Above them, fellow miners and rescue workers dug desperately to get them out, clinging to the unwritten Miner's Code that no man shall be left behind. After a week of digging and with hope all but exhausted, they found one group of a dozen miners; a day later seven more men were discovered. Melissa Fay Greene describes this harrowing ordeal in sharp detail, effectively capturing the drama of the event for both the miners trapped below and their distraught families waiting above.

Placing the event into a larger context, Greene describes how it became the first nationally televised disaster, as journalists from all over Canada and the U.S. converged on the small town and camped at the entrance of the mine. After their rescue, the men were the center of media attention, and some of them became instant celebrities (one was chosen as Canada's "Citizen of the Year"; another became a spokesman for 7-Up soda). She also details the bizarre episode in which an assistant to the governor of Georgia tried to spin the disaster into a marketing gimmick to promote tourism. To the segregationist governor's chagrin, one of the rescued miners turned out to be black, presenting him with a potential public relations nightmare. Though her use of fictionalized dialogue between the miners is sometimes distracting, Greene's extensive research brings this remarkable story to life, making Last Man Out an absorbing re-creation of a forgotten episode. --Shawn Carkonen

From Publishers Weekly

The mining disaster that killed 75 men in Nova Scotia in 1958 is rich terrain for a good yarn, but Greene's book about the miners who survived and those who didn't comes up short. Her research is adequate, but surprisingly, NBA finalist Greene fails to bring this tale to life. In re-creating the events leading up to and following the catastrophe, imagined dialogue rings inauthentic: that miners gathered around a colleague with a mile of rock pinning his arm down exclaim, Oh my God, oh my God, and Oh Jesus, oh Jesus, seems a tad polite, even for 1950s Canada. Similarly, the author's overreliance on exclamation points in dialogue forces tension and excitement. As well, the miner subculture isn't effectively captured, and the buildup to the explosion, known as the Bump, is bereft of suspense. The story gets interesting after the rescue of 19 men, who are subsequently exploited by various factions, including the media and the public relations aide to a segregationist U.S. governor, who arranges to fly the survivors and their families to a beach resort the governor's state is looking to promote. The presumed PR goes horribly awry when it's learned that one miner is black, as are his 12 children. Greene (Praying for Sheetrock; Temple Bombing) does prove successful in her fascinating narrative on this miner an amateur musician known as the Singing Miner and Canada's Citizen of the Year in 1958. But sadly, his is the only head that Greene succeeds in getting into.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 14 and up
  
• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 1 edition (April 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0151005591
• ISBN-13: 978-0151005598
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,198,842 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Melissa Fay Greene''s new book, NO BIKING IN THE HOUSE WITHOUT A HELMET, is her first memoir and her first light-hearted and humorous book. She has always been a funny writer, but it was hard to use much humor in telling stories about domestic violence, coal mine disasters, and the HIV/AIDS pandemic. It turns out that the true story of the creation of Melissa's family of nine children, including four by birth, four from Ethiopia, and one from Bulgaria, is one of the funniest stories she knows. Melissa and her husband, Don Samuel, and half a dozen of these children live in Atlanta. Visit Melissa online at www.melissafaygreene.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Moving , Human Drama, April 1, 2003

By 

"jfgummels" (Jefferson City, MO USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Last Man Out: The Story of the Springhill Mine Disaster (Hardcover)

This book was a terrific read. It is a story of 19 men who are trapped in a coal mine in Springhill, Novia Scotia, when a "bump" occurs: a huge force of gas from deep in the earth which pushes the floor of the mine tunnels to the ceiling timbers, crushing equipment like toys and killing over a hundred miners. It is also the story of the families of the miners, segregation in the state of Georgia, the choices made by politicians and their advisors, post-traumatic stress of survivors, and how individual lives are affected by having the spotlight of fame shone of them for a brief period of time. At its heart, "Last Man Out" is a human tale of courage, honor and decency in the face of natural and manmade adversity. I finished the book in two sittings, needing to know if these men would be liberated from their dark prison of coal and how their wives and children would survive.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The book that made me cry, laugh and think, May 12, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Last Man Out: The Story of the Springhill Mine Disaster (Hardcover)

The book of Melissa Fay Greene is a wonderfully written, thoughtful description and analysis of an extreme situation: a disaster that strikes an entire town. What I love about the book is that it presents very difficult situations in a compassionate, yet totally true and honest way. The book is based on extensive research and interviews, and the author allows the men who were trapped underground in the mine collapse to speak with their own words, making their suffering and lives very distinct and understandable. Yet the voice of the author is also clearly heard in the book and she draws conclusions from these individual stories, conclusions about the nature of heroism, communal reactions to catastrophes, the solitude of dying. These conclusions are never ponderous: Melissa Fay Greene never preaches or behaves like "senior analysts" we are besieged with. Her reasoning is woven into the story, and she is a superb story-teller. She writes with such a talent and taste for language and words, that every page is a delight to read. This is a book that made me cry, laugh, and think. I recommend it to all readers.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Haunting & Insightful True Story of Tragedy & Survival, April 5, 2003

By 

Richard E. "Nick" Noble (Southborough, MA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Last Man Out: The Story of the Springhill Mine Disaster (Hardcover)

This wonderful book tells the story of a Nova Scotia coal mine disaster in 1958 and its rather unique aftermath. Melissa Fay Greene weaves a series of small personal stories into a haunting and evocative narrative: one of the best "disaster" books I have ever read. The resiliency of the survivors, when juxtaposed with the unusual events which followed, including the bizarre intervention of the racist Governor of Georgia, really gives this account a special perspective on history and the human condition.

I found it fascinating that the author, from Georgia, became involved in the saga of the Springhill miners from the back end of the story, as it were. The Georgia connection adds a remarkable coda to the miners' ordeal, but if she had just told that, it would not have resonated as effectively as the book does. She took the time to trace the story to its beginning and to tell it all. For that I am grateful. I learned far more than I had ever known before, and I was drawn in by her skill with narrative and her genuine understanding of/empathy for those involved.

This insightful book is definitely a worthwhile experience.