The Path Was Steep: A Memoir of Appalachian Coal Camps During the Great Depression

Sue Pickett was a coal miner's daughter who became a coal miner's wife. She witnessed the turbulent years of the Great Depression and the sometimes-violent struggles between labor unions and coal mine bosses throughout the Appalachian South-especially in Kentucky, West Virginia, and Mrs. Pickett's native Alabama.
Her story is peopled with memorable characters-an almost Biblical cast of family members, which includes her irrepressible husband David; the dangerous and feared coal-company enforcer Mike Self; Irene, a fiercely proud ten-year-old mountain girl left homeless by the hard times; a roaring, fire-belching automobile nicknamed Thunderbolt, and many others. Theirs are stories of making do, getting by, and surviving, but they are equally of love of family and land.