“A Blazing Gilded Age” is the epic story of a volatile nation burning with ambition, yet bleeding with injustice. It was a time of profound change, boldly transforming from an agrarian backwater into an industrial powerhouse.
Center stage is the Wozniak family; poor coal miners struggling to achieve the elusive American dream. Suffering a string of calamities at the hands of their ruthless and depraved boss, Archibald Desmond Huxley, the Wozniaks are thrust into utter turmoil, thus igniting a blazing journey of revenge, justice, and survival.
During the Wozniaks’ quest they encounter many icons, including Theodore Roosevelt, J.P. Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, Mark Twain, Nikola Tesla, Presidents Garfield and McKinley, Buffalo Bill, and many others, thus painting a broad and vivid canvas of 19th century America.
Springing to life is an era boiling with bravado, yet blistering with greed, as innovation and military might coincide with child labor and class warfare. After many unexpected twists of fate—some fortuitous and others heartbreaking—the Wozniaks emerge victorious, thus finally achieving the American dream, yet not without scars.
FIVE STARS!!
Rich DiSilvio, a man as committed to music, art, philosophy and sociology as informed by the fine arts, takes this period of history with all of the fascinating changes, discoveries, triumphs and failures and by introducing fictional characters within the stage setting of this era makes it far more credible.
We see so much better through the eyes of witnesses than through the most sophisticated lenses of modern technology. And in DiSilvio's handling of the parallel or concurrent unraveling of historical events with those of the Wozniak family he provides not only keen insight but also pauses for the inclusion of the arts, so often ignored by other historical novel writers.
His style is compelling, jolting in the manner in which he lays open old wounds of our making we had hoped would somehow heal without medicaments, and at the same time infuses a gentle tenderness in his depiction of `common man' so far below the gleam of the gilt of this gilded age.
This is a magnificent epic novel, one that will be always with us - and hopefully in the classrooms of students who so desperately need to understand our true history.
FIVE STARS!
In A Blazing Gilded Age, by Rich DiSilvio, readers are transported into the world of men who were ahead of their time in the 19th century. Vanderbilt, J.P. Morgan, Edison and Teddy Roosevelt were determined to make their mark on history and would lie, cheat, and even bribe politicians to make it happen.
The people who worked hard, long hours for very little pay are the real heroes; they worked in coal mines, built the impressive buildings, and held down other jobs to support their families. Marc Wozniak, along with his father and brother, worked in one of the coal mines.
There had been explosions due to faulty equipment and the lack of proper training, which led to his father dying in the mine. It would take Marc most of his life to bring down the major players and finally make conditions safer for the workers.
In A Blazing Gilded Age, Rich DiSilvio has written not only an entertaining story, but he has given readers an insight into history through his excellent research on the men of the 19th century. He brings to life the story of America through stories of those who helped build and define it.
A Blazing Gilded Age brings to light all the struggles and victories of the workers who defined a generation. I learned a great deal from this well-researched, informative and entertaining book.
I would recommend this book to all readers, especially teachers looking for an entertaining way for their students to explore a critical time in our history.
FIVE STARS!
What a magnificent book!!! As soon as I started it, Rich DiSilvio's prose immediately grabbed me.
The opening scene in the coal mine is so very touching and disturbing. When one thinks of the Gilded Age, one things of the Morgans, the Vanderbilts - yet this brilliantly written historical novel shows the other side - the millions of people (many of them children) who labored in horrific and dangerous situations, many dying so that the Tycoons could live like kings and the Industrial Revolution could transform America.
I was greatly reminded of Upton Sinclair's immortal dexcription of the slaughterhouse in The Jungle when Mr. DiSilvio wrote about the child workers in the coal mines- some as young as nine, working for pennies and dying due to the utter lack of humanity and concern of those who owned and benefited from the horrors and deaths of the many.
In a very real sense- Mr. Disilvio shows in a truly brilliant manner- the "Rust"...human rust stained by blood, that was the real power behind the "Gilded" age.
James Jones, who wrote FROM HERE TO ETERNITY, was an Army Grunt, and very much wanted his books to be from the perspective of those enlisted grunts like him, not the famed Generals who took credit and little personal risk.
A Blazing Gilded Age is very much the same- the reader is exposed to those who do not have libraries and foundations named after them, yet played a far more vital role (and dangerous, deadly, and fruitless role) in the Industrial Revolution that made America the superpower it became. It is about time!
I also loved the fact that sprinkled throughout the novel are historic figures, Teddy Roosevelt, Mark Twain, James Garfield, Testa etc. and many others. These figures burst to life thanks to the narrative skills of a terrific writer. A very important book to read.
