Tillie Olsen

The documentary we saw last night on Tillie Olsen was cheaply done, with no budget and little in the way of production values. But it was worth seeing because of Tillie Olsen herself, who was such a giant of a writer. (Olsen died in 2007 in Berkeley at age 94, buried in Alzheimers.)

Everyone should read Olsen's short stories, and if you want to have your eyes opened wide about what life was like for workers in the steel mills and slaughter yards of the 1930s, try 'Yonnondio.' The bulk of this book was written in 1932 when Olsen was only 19, but then lost and unfinished for 40 more years. It's one of the strongest and starkest books Plotnik has ever read, and it is not long, but don't plan to read it quickly. There are punches to the gut in every short chapter. Here's how Yonnondio begins:

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The whistles always woke Mazie. They pierced into her sleep like some guttural-voiced metal beast, tearing at her; breathing a terror. During the day if the whistle blew, she knew it meant death -- somebody's poppa or brother, perhaps her own -- in that fearsome place below the ground, the mine.

"God damn that blowhorn," she heard her father mutter. Creak of him getting out of bed. The door closed, with yellow light from the kerosene lamp making a long crack on the floor. Clatter of dishes. her mother's tired, grimy voice.

"What'll ya have? Coffee and eggs? There ain't no bacon."

"Don't bother with anything. Haven't time. I gotta stop by Kvaternicks and get the kid. He's starting work today."

"What're they going to give him?"

"Little of everything at first, I guess, trap, throw switches. Maybe timberin."

"Well, he'll be starting one punch ahead of the old man. Chris began as a breaker boy." (Behind both stolid faces the claw of a buried thought -- and maybe finish like him, buried under slaty roof that the company hadn't bothered to timber.)

"He's thirteen, ain't he?" asked Anna.

"I guess. Nearer to fourteen."

"Marie was tellin me, it would break Chris's heart if he only knew. He wanted the kid to be different, get an edjication."

"Yeah? Them foreigners do have funny ideas."