Gilded Mountain: A Novel by Kate Manning

 

 Gilded Mountain: A Novel by Kate Manning. 447 pages. Scribner, 2022. Historical fiction.

At the turn of the last century, Sylvie Pelletier and her family arrive in Moonstone, Colorado. Her father came before them to work in the deep mines that harvest pure marble. Sylvie is spunky, smart, and graduates in Quarrytown, a small town down the mountain. She get a summer job with the wealthy Padgett family as a social secretary. Her exposure to luxury and its contrast with her life of poverty is drastic. Sylvie thinks she is in love with the bookish young Jasper Padgett, but enjoys the attention of George Lonahan, a union organizer at the mine. She takes a job as a printer's helper at the local newspaper and admires the single single woman owner's independence. In 1908, a strike at the mine changes everyone's lives. Sylvie persevers hopefully throughout the novel.  She learns about slavery from the formerly enslaved cook at Elkhorne Manor and about mine conditions and union organizing from Mother Jones herself.

Based on true accounts of early Colorado history, the novel is eye opening as it recounts incidences of early settlers, discrimination, and civil rights struggles.