Editorial Review:

Novelist Barbara Kingsolver began her writing career with Holding the Line. It is the story of how women's lives were transformed by an eighteen-month strike against the Phelps-Dodge Copper Corporation. Set in the small mining towns of Arizona, the story is partly oral history and partly social criticism, exploring the process of empowerment which occurs when people work together as a community.

Customer Reviews:

Avg. Customer Rating: 3.5 / 5.0

Outrageously biased:

I could hardly believe what I read. It's is amazing how this "novel" is treated as a serious work, but it is merely a story, loosely based on the events. Worst of all, it is based completely on angry spiteful stories. She makes these people out to be heroes, but she ignores those that brought their children to the picket line with their hands taped to hold up their middle finger, those brandishing pistols to kill the scabs (all of this caught on network news). She ignores the violence of the strikers... more info

the power of women in the strike:

In "Holding the Line", author Barbara Kingsolver ("The Poisonwood Bible", "Animal Dreams") offers us an account of the strike at the 1983 Morenci Copper Mine in Arizona. Kingsolver was working as a reporter at the time and spent quite a bit of time with the women involved in the strike. She gives the reader a different perspective on the strike; and on strikes in general. "Holding the Line" focuses on the women involved in the strike and how the strike affected them, and also just how much influence they... more info

Women on the picket line and its impact on their lives:

Barbara Kingsolver was a young reporter in Arizona when she was assigned to write a story about this strike. Little did she know then that the strike would last for eighteen months, and that this book would be a natural outgrowth of her interest. The book is filled with facts and figures as well as the stories of people who bravely "held the line" each day, picketing against the "scab" workers that were brought in by the Phelps Dodge Copper Corporation. It's also the story of a town, where the only work was... more info

Please:

If you expect anything even approaching an objective and truthful retelling or analysis of the Phelps Dodge strike, you'll be sadly disappointed. Kingsolver picks a series of unsubstantiated and self-interested stories of the strikers and completely ignores the horrible violence committed by the unions.

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