Summary: We talk with <a href="http://www.jesswalter.com/">Jess Walter</a> about his novel <a href="https://www.auntiesbooks.com/book/9780062868084">The Cold Millions</a>. It’s about the first Gilded Age with striking parallels to the Gilded Age 2.0 we’re living in right now.<br> Then, we revisit our 2015 interview with Lara Vapnek about her biography of one of the historical characters who appears in Walter’s novel: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn. It’s called Rebel Girl.<br> Writer’s Voice — in depth conversation with writers of all genres, on the air since 2004.<br> Love Writer’s Voice? Please rate us on your podcast app. It really helps to get the word out about our show. And like us on Facebook at <a href="https://www.facebook.com/WritersVoiceRadio/">Writers Voice Radio</a> or find us on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/writersvoice?lang=en">@WritersVoice</a>.<br> <br> Jess Walter<br> In 1909 Spokane Washington was the setting for one of the most important civil rights battles in our history. But the fight wasn’t about racial justice. It was about <a href="https://historylink.org/File/7357">free speech—specifically the right of workers to organize in the public sphere for labor rights</a>.<br> That free speech fight provides the setting for Jess Walter’s gripping new novel, The Cold Millions.<br> It’s an intimate story of brotherhood, love, sacrifice, and betrayal set against the backdrop of an early twentieth-century America that eerily echoes our own time, with its chasm between rich and poor. The Cold Millions is a compulsive read, featuring an unforgettable cast of cops and tramps, suffragists and socialists, madams and murderers.<br> Jess Walter is the author of nine books, including the bestselling novel The Beautiful Ruins.<br> <a href="https://preview.aer.io/The%5C_Cold%5C_Millions-MjgyMDc2?social=1&retail=1&emailcap=0">Read an excerpt from The Cold Millions</a><br> Lara Vapnek<br> Back in 2015, we talked with historian Lara Vapnek about her biography of the great labor organizer and champion of civil liberties, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn. We replay a long excerpt from that Writers Voice episode.<br> <a href="https://www.writersvoice.net/2015/03/web-extra-lara-vapnek-elizabeth-gurley-flynn-extended-interview/">Listen to the extended interview</a><br> <br>
