Man on a Road and Other Stories

The featured piece in this compilation, "Man on a Road," is well-known for sparking the 1936 congressional hearings, which revealed the grave industrial catastrophe marked by severe capitalist abuse. This story is narrated from the viewpoint of a miner who is metaphorically like the living dead, as he gradually suffocates due to silicosis. Another notable story, "The Happiest Man on Earth," which won the 1938 O. Henry Award, follows a man who sets off on a long foot journey to find employment, driven by his need to provide for his family and restore his dignity. In "The Way Things Are," the harsh realities of the Jim Crow South are depicted with stark realism, offering a glimpse of the coming civil-rights movement's ethos and aesthetics. Albert Maltz, a notable figure among the "Hollywood Ten" targeted during the McCarthy era, endured ten months of imprisonment and spent two decades barred from working under his own name, relying instead on a pseudonym. This collection, which spans four decades of Maltz's career and includes some works not previously compiled, revives his voice, reasserting his role as a profound practitioner of powerful and empathetic short stories.