Gilded Mountain

In 1907, 17-year-old Sylvie Pelletier and her family join her hard-working father at a marble quarry in Moonstone, CO. The worksite is rough—long hours, unpaid labor, and unsafe working conditions. Mentored and hired by the local paper’s progressive newspaper owner, Sylvie jumps at the chance, when offered, to escape her family’s lifestyle and move to the mine owner’s estate to serve as social secretary. Surrounded by wealth, Sylvie notices the gap between the poverty of the quarry townsfolk and the opulence of the manor. Pursued by both the boss’s son and a union rabble-rouser, Sylvie might frustrate some with her naivete, yet readers will appreciate how Manning (My Notorious Life) follows her main character’s maturation into middle age as a union leader and wife. Narrator Dawn Harvey enhances the text by expertly voicing many characters and accents, including French Canadian and Continental French. The male quarry workers are voiced distinctly, although the most noteworthy voice is Mother Jones’s fierce Irish lilt. This production is free from technical errors, and the editing of Harvey voicing coughs and drunken slurred words is flawless.