Mark Nowak’s Coal Mountain Elementary reminds me of Goldsmith’s writing style. However, the references pages at the end of Nowak’s book give a different sense of authority. While Goldsmith’s writing is built on plagiarizing from other sources in order to create differential texts, Nowak cites the sources which he depends on in his book. However, reading Nowak makes me confused about the way authorship can be identified. In other words, I believe that Nowak’s act of collecting materials about mining disasters (explosion, floods, fire) from a wide range of sources does not make him the author figure of his book. Thus, from reading Nowak, I ask: Does authorship matter when there is a humane message that is greater in importance than the author’s identification?

Nowak emphasizes issues of class and poverty and investigates the impacts of the coal mining industry on the lives of people who work in coal mines. Interestingly, Nowak brings the voice of the worker’s family into his text. He gives them space to share their own stories with readers.

The book is an important documentation of the coal miners’ struggle between poverty and needing to support their family through their risky work in the mines. Yet, the style of the book (news style) gives a sense of repetition and boredom. All of the stories have the same narrating style and all are about the deaths of mineworkers worldwide while working for certain cooperations or governments.