''Hawk's Nest'' is a novel written by
West Virginia author
Hubert Skidmore, published in 1941. A fictionalized account of one of America's greatest industrial disasters, it is an account of the
Hawks Nest Tunnel Disaster in which hundreds or thousands of men were sickened and died as a result of
silicosis
Silicosis is a form of occupational lung disease caused by inhalation of crystalline silica dust. It is marked by inflammation and scarring in the form of nodular lesions in the upper lobes of the lungs. It is a type of pneumoconiosis. Silicos ...
they contracted while digging the tunnel under unsafe conditions. The novel follows the lives of many representative characters as their health begins to fail, and as their health complaints are ignored by
Union Carbide, the contractor which dug the tunnel and installed the hydroelectric plant.
The characters in ''Hawk's Nest'' are broadly representative: ruined West Virginia farmers work alongside
Dust Bowl refugees, eastern European immigrants and even middle class men ruined by the
Depression. In the historical disaster,
African American men accounted for the largest percentage of deaths, and Skidmore acknowledges that fact even though the African Americans in ''Hawk's Nest'' are secondary characters.
One of Skidmore's characters, a dying teenager, begs doctors to perform an
autopsy
An autopsy (post-mortem examination, obduction, necropsy, or autopsia cadaverum) is a surgical procedure that consists of a thorough examination of a corpse by dissection to determine the cause, mode, and manner of death or to evaluate any di ...
on his body so that the cause of his illness can be discovered and so that other workers might be saved. In her 1938 poem "Book of the Dead,"
Muriel Rukeyser tells an identical story.
''Hawk's Nest'' was republished in 2004 by the
University of Tennessee Press and has gained some small amount of popularity since reappearing. An often repeated story claims that the book's first edition was pulled from many shelves due to pressure from Union Carbide Co., the company responsible for the countless deaths recounted in the novel.
1941 American novels
Novels set in Appalachia
Novels set in West Virginia
Novels based on actual events
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