{"product_id":"spindle-city-9781665088008","title":"Spindle City","description":"\u003cp\u003eLonglisted for the 2021 PEN\/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOn June 23, 1911--a summer day so magnificent it seems as if God himself has smiled on the town--Fall River, Massachusetts, is reveling in its success. The Cotton Centennial is in full swing as Joseph Bartlett takes his place among the local elite in the parade grandstand. The meticulously planned carnival has brought the thriving textile town to an unprecedented halt; rich and poor alike crowd the streets, welcoming President Taft to America's \"Spindle City.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eYet as he perches in the grandstand nursing a nagging toothache, Joseph Bartlett straddles the divide between Yankee mill owners and the union bosses who fight them. Bartlett, a renegade owner, fears the town cannot long survive against the union-free South. He frets over the ever-present threat of strikes and factory fires, knowing his own fortune was changed by the drop of a kerosene lantern. When the Cleveland Mill burned, good men died, and immigrant's son Joseph Bartlett gained a life of privilege he never wanted.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNow Joseph is one of the most influential men in a prosperous town. High above the rabble, as he stands among politicians and society ladies, his wife is dying, his sons are lost in the crowd facing pivotal decisions of their own, and the differences between the haves and have-nots are stretched to the breaking point.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSpindle City delves deep into the lives, loves, and fortunes of real and imagined mill owners, anarchists, and immigrants, from the Highlands mansions to the tenements of the Cogsworth slum, chronicling a mill town's--and a generation's--last days of glory.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eBurrello, Jotham:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e - \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eJotham Burrello\u003c\/b\u003e is a writer, teacher, publisher, farmer, and multimedia producer. He is the author of the \u003ci\u003eWriters' e-Handbook\u003c\/i\u003e and producer of \u003ci\u003eSo, Is It Done? Navigating the Revision Process\u003c\/i\u003e. Other writing has appeared in literary journals, the \u003ci\u003eChristian Science Monitor\u003c\/i\u003e, and he's a proud winner of the \u003ci\u003eNew Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e Caption Contest. He teaches writing at Central Connecticut State University, directs the Yale Writers' Workshop and the Connecticut Literary Festival, curates the Roar Reading Series, and is the publisher of the award-winning Elephant Rock Books. He and his wife raise boys and flowers on Muddy Feet Flower Farm in Ashford, Connecticut.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Blackstone Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50495475155218,"sku":"9781665088008","price":12.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_191bfdf3-2fca-43f8-b471-da3e61ad13ea.jpg?v=1730685526","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/spindle-city-9781665088008","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}