I Can't Breathe!: Libby, Montana 1958

by H. M. Bowker

Overview

A mystery of abuse and death weaved its way into the Libby, Montana, community in the late 1950's. Corporate abuse held community members captive as they breathed the poisonous air from the asbestos mining company. The Bowman family hid dark secrets of child abuse. The public school harbored a sexual abuser. And then there were the missing children. Who took the children? Why? What happened to them? The discovery of a child's body in a shallow grave had broader implications that the sheriff could understand.

When Eric Bowman moved to Libby, he took a management position with the Zonolite Mining Company. He was also a positive influence within his father's family, becoming a caring brother to his three half-sisters. His work with the mining company revealed evidence that company managers knew the asbestos ore poisoned many of its miners, as well as consumers of the products made from the ore. But they did nothing that would interfere with the huge profits they were making. Eric's research put his life in jeopardy. No one had ever survived who took on this company in any way that would diminish the billions of dollars the owners were making.

These interwoven threads of abuse unfolded in a community where death was given in exchange for a paycheck from the mining company, and where child physical and sexual abuse were as commonplace as the people who knew about it were willing to allow.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780692220023
Publisher:	H. M. Bowker
Publication date:	09/22/2014
Pages:	470
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.95(d)

About the Author

H. M. Bowker grew up in Libby, Montana, attended Carroll College in Helena, where she majored in English with a minor in sociology and education, and later went on to earn a master's degree in educational leadership from the University of Montana. For years, she taught English and art at the middle- and high-school levels, until serving a six-year stint as a secondary principal. In 1989, she completed her PhD in educational leadership at Gonzaga University and then served nine years as superintendent for Washington state public schools.

She currently lives near Seattle, Washington, with her husband and their three children.

Editorial Reviews

2014-11-04
In this debut novel, horrific health issues and other troubles plague the Bowman family and other residents of the small mining town of Libby, Montana.In 1958, when 14-year-old Julie Bowman passes by the abandoned Hardin ranch, she recalls her friendship with Tommy Hardin before he and his family developed mysterious coughs and moved away. But she also has a more immediate concern: the physical abuse that she and her sisters suffer at the hands of their mentally ill mother, Betty, an overweight hoarder. (The book then details Betty's own childhood abuse, both physical and sexual.) Dewey, the girls' father, is clueless about what's going on, as he spends most of his time at his music store. That changes, though, when older sister Darlene gets pregnant: Betty's violent reaction in front of the girl's boyfriend is hard for Dewey to ignore. Meanwhile, Eric, Dewey's son from his first marriage, arrives in town, gets a job at the area's asbestos mine and finds secret documents that reveal the damage that asbestos dust has done to workers and town residents. Other odd doings include hidden children at the Hardin ranch and a popular female choir teacher propositioning one of Julia's male classmates. By novel's end, the abused children are rescued through surprising means, and Eric moves forward with his investigations. Debut novelist Bowker, a native of a real-life mining town of the same name, notes at the end that "a great deal of truth often comes to life through fiction." She provides some heartbreaking tableaux of life in Libby, such as the Hardin children playing with the asbestos dust that litters their home. Yet this town's asbestos problem takes a rather surprising back seat to Bowker's engulfing, powerful story of Betty's abuse. These and other competing plot threads occasionally threaten to overwhelm the narrative, but the story gains clarity and momentum in its concluding chapters and almost always, sadly, has the ring of truth. In an afterword, Bowker announces a planned sequel to this fascinating, ultimately absorbing tale.A multilayered melodrama with a documentarylike feel.

Kirkus Reviews