(keys typing) (typewriter dinging) (tranquil music) - [Jess] I'm Jess Walter and this is "The Cold Millions," the story of two adventuring brothers, Gig and Rye Dolan, who get swept up in the violent free speech battles of the early 20th century, and fall under the spell of real-life suffragist and Labor leader, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn.

- Take us to Spokane, Washington in 1909, and set the stage for us for "The Cold Millions."

- It was the scene of these labor battles between union organizers at the time who weren't allowed to speak on the streets, who were trying to organize for workers of all race, of all gender, and they battled against city officials and corporate leaders who did not want those unions to organize.

Spokane was the setting of the most violent.

More than 500 were arrested, at least three died, and many were brutally beaten and thrown into makeshift cells, sometimes 25 people in a cell built for two.

That battle between early labor, and at the time, early labor also included suffragists, like Elizabeth Gurley Flynn who were fighting not just for the rights of workers but for the rights of women, Native Americans, people of color to have jobs.

So it was such an early moment of progressivism that I really wanted to try to capture.

Into this story wander my two protagonists, Gig and Rye Dolan, two Irish brothers, 23 and almost 17 who've spent their lives living in hobo camps, going from job to job, and they get swept up in this early political movement, and all sorts of treachery, undercover Pinkerton agents.

And I really wanted it to be a rollicking adventure.

I think the book really is about if we lift one person, we lift everyone.

And if we lift everyone, we lift ourselves.

- [JT] For more of my conversation with Jess Walter, please visit awordonwords.org.

And thank you so much for watching A Word on Words.

I'm JT Ellison.

Keep reading.

- [Jess] Both of my grandfathers were hobos in the 1930s.

Jumped trains to find work and my grandpa Jess Walter would tell me these stories about how to catch a train.

For me there was always a sense of adventure.

I was a kid who loved "Treasure Island," and this was like a cabin boy stowing away on a pirate ship.