Book shines light on 1943 coal-mine disaster, made more relevant by recent deaths

In the aftermath of the Upper Big Branch mine explosion that killed 29 West Virginia miners last month, a new book exploring a 1943 Montana mining disaster that killed 74 seems particularly relevant. "The Smith Coal Mine disaster was one of the nation's worst coal-mining accidents, but because it occurred during World War II, it was quickly forgotten by all, except those who lived through it," says the website of Goodbye Wifes and Daughters, written by journalist Susan Kusher Resnick and published by the University of Nebraska Press. The title comes from a line in a dying miner's farewell note.

"After conducting interviews with miners' relatives and combing through newspaper stories and government and mine company documents, Resnick reconstructed the events by which a small town was 'killed, as surely as if it had been flattened by an earthquake or burned by a wildfire'," Lisa Bonos writes in a review for The Washington Post. "Resnick does an admirable job of breathing life into the story of a small town's demise and its questioning of whether the disaster could have been avoided." The book's website classifies the text as not only a heartbreaking story, but also "a cautionary tale."