Fire on the Water

February 3, 2020
Little-known passages in the history of Cleveland in the 1900s inspire this earnest fictionalized tale of life and death among the “sandhogs”—immigrant workers who dig tunnels to bring clean water to the city. The account is rife with relevant themes—ecological disaster (typhus outbreaks are common due to Lake Erie’s fetid waters), anti-immigration sentiments, and racism among them. Some characters are based on real life figures, including Benjamin Beltran, inspired by inventor Garrett Morgan—whose fire-fighting creation the “smoke helmet” is laughed at because he’s African-American. Another thread follows Rodger Clarke, the Irish foreman on Crib #5, one of the tunneling projects made potentially fatal by subterranean gas pockets near the work site. Their paths intertwine—along with various others, including the corrupt mayor and project supervisors, and struggling sandhogs—in a conflagration known as “1916 Waterworks Disaster” that sees Beltran’s invention put to dramatic use. MacGregor and artist Dumm (American Splendor) are both native Clevelanders, bringing shared passion for their local history. But the effort is somewhat undermined by Dumm’s occasionally plodding art style, with stiff and overly similar character art, and by MacGregor’s overreliance on patois and accents. Well-meaning if not sparkling in execution, this nonetheless presents a plucky tale of survival and heroism.

April 17, 2020

Gas pockets created from millennia of natural processes hide under the deep waters of Lake Erie just off the Cleveland shore. Rodger Clarke leads a crew of men building a waterworks tunnel under risk of asphyxiation or worse from randomly uncovered small gas pockets. Willy "The Dutchman" profits from the jobs done under the table illegally by Rodger's crew, blackmailing Rodger into the desperate work while concealing his own complicity in a previous mining disaster. Neither Rodger nor Willy know that the gas already uncovered is nothing compared to a major gas deposit they are about to hit. When the tunnel site explodes and burns, Benjamin Beltran, a local African American innovator, hears the call, and risks his life to help rescue any survivors with his revolutionary invention. VERDICT MacGregor bases his first full-length work on the horrific true story of the 1916 Waterworks Tunnel disaster, and with artist Dumm (American Splendor) compellingly utilizes biographical elements, political machinations, corruption, humor, and even light touches of fantasy to weave a nuanced tapestry about the richness of human experience under the most trying circumstances. [Previewed in Douglas Rednour's "Picture This," LJ 4/20.]--Douglas Rednour, Georgia State Univ. Libs., Atlanta

Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2020
In the early twentieth century, pollution levels in Lake Erie were so high that Cleveland began tunneling under the lake to create new water intakes for the city's water supply. Lethal gas pockets, flooding, and explosions weren't the only hazards for workers; corrupt officials and those in power did little to ensure the safety of the Sandhogs, teams composed mostly of working class Irish immigrants, who did the excavation. Disaster finally struck on July 25, 1916, when a rapid series of accidents left 20 men dead. Created by two comic-industry veterans, this graphic novel lays bare how the intersection of class, economic disparity, and prejudice resulted in a catastrophic loss of life. The claustrophobic tension of lives lived in poverty is echoed by the dangerous work done in confined spaces underground, heightened to great effect by the dark tones of the greyscale panels and anguished expressions of the figures. A powerful vision that exposes the far-reaching impacts of greed and oppression.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)