When Butterflies Cry is the second book I have read by Ninie
Hammon and it will not be the last. Ninie Hammon has an incredible gift with
language. For example, a line from the second page says, “But the smile that
started on Andy’s face melted like wax beneath a candle flame.” Can’t you just see that smile disappear?
The book When Butterflies Cry is based in Wales, Vietnam and
West Virginia. An event in time pulls them all together. An unknown girl shows up at the door. She has
been badly beaten by someone but no one reports her missing. A few days later a
shell-shocked soldier comes home from the war in Vietnam to find his brother
making moves on his wife. Meanwhile, above their home the dam built to hold
back toxic waste from coal mining is about to let go.
In Ninie’s book she talks about the United States Bureau of
Mines, the agency that is supposed to exercise regulatory control over the
mining industry. She says that in practice, the USBM was more of an extension
of the industry than a watchdog. I found this particularly interesting because
in the Canadian province I live in we have recently had a dam give way that
contained toxic sludge from the Mount Polley mine. One
of the reasons why this happened was poor government oversight. The buzz-word here is self-regulating, The Mount Polley mine spill was an example of where that policy leads. There were no towns beneath the
massive spill that happened in BC, but there was a pristine wilderness which up
until now has boasted the largest run of sockeye salmon.
I would highly recommend Ninie’s book. It is not so much a social commentary as a wonderful
story of love and loss and what it means to be family.
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