Clarkton — Howard Fast

When a factory strike turns violent, neighbors clash in a sleepy New England company town

It is 1945, and soldiers have returned home from Europe and the Pacific to take up their former lives. But in Clarkton, a small Massachusetts factory town, a high-stakes labor battle quickly turns violent, turning what should be a time of peace and prosperity into a bloody conflict that draws in every citizen. No one remains untouched, from rigid factory owner George Clark Lowell, to a small army of labor organizers of every background, to reptilian strike-buster Hamilton Gelb, to the shopkeepers, barbers, and priests that watch in confusion and horror as the nightmare unfolds.

Clarkton is a potent novel of one town's fight against oppression, and a chilling reflection on the American labor movement after the Second World War.