Underground Fire: Hope, Sacrifice, and Courage in the Cherry Mine Disaster

A historic mine fire traps hundreds of men underground in a gripping work of narrative nonfiction meticulously researched and told by a master of the genre.

It is November 13, 1909, and the coal miners of Cherry, Illinois, head to work with lunch pails in hand, just like any other day. By seven a.m., 484 of these men are underground, starting jobs that range from taking care of the mules that haul coal to operating cages that raise and lower workers and coal to chiseling out rocks and coal ...