Iron City (novel)

Last updated
Iron City
IronCityNovel.jpg
First edition
Author Lloyd L. Brown
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Genre Proletarian literature
PublisherMasses & Mainstream
Publication date
1951
Media typePrint (Paperback)
Pages255
OCLC 30544433

Iron City is a prison novel by the American writer Lloyd L. Brown based on an actual court case and inspired by the author's experiences as a labor organizer and political prisoner in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania from 1936 to 1941. [1]

The novel tells the story of Lonnie James, a black youth falsely convicted of-and sentenced to death for the murder of a white businessman. From inside the "iron city" of the Allegheny County Jail in Pittsburgh, America's "iron city," three black Communist prisoners spearhead a fight to save James's life. Iron City confronts race relations in mid-twentieth-century America inside and outside prison walls and promotes a Communist vision of racial and class solidarity.

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References

  1. Brown, Lloyd (1994). Iron City : a novel. Boston: Northeastern University Press. ISBN   9781555532062. OCLC   30544433.