Good read. Novak family in mining town of Bakerstown, PA. Follows them thru adulthood. Also story about the town and how mining effects it.

An absorbing tale of lives lived in a mining town, of those who stayed, those who left, and those who came back. The ending was a bit disappointing, with the stories tied up in a tidy package with some happily marrieds, but the journey was worthwhile.

Initial note: I don't remember when or where I acquired this book. It's a brand new hardback and has no stickers, so I must have picked it up from a sale table at some point. I only know it's been on my TBR shelf for years.

I like books that grab you from the opening sentence, or at least the opening paragraph. This book opens with short, choppy sentences describing the setting in a way I found both dull and annoying, but as soon as the characters entered on the third page, the story came to life.

I'm looking forward to the rest of it. ( )

I absolutely LOVED Jennifer Haigh's novel, BAKER TOWERS (2005). I don't know how I missed out on it when it was a national bestseller seventeen years ago, but I'm so glad it finally found me. It's the story of the Novak family and how they and various other folks lived, loved and died in the coal mining town of Bakerton, Pennsylvania. Its depictions of small town life are so on the money that I often found myself relating and remembering. Here's a small sample -

"It was an exercise performed in small towns everywhere: the tracing back through generations, the connecting of in-laws and distant cousins, names familiar from church or school ... It could nor accurately be called gossip; there was nothing malicious in the talk. It was simply the female way of ordering the world, a universe where everyone was important and all activities worthy of notice."

Reading this, I remembered lying under the dining room table as a kid, reading comics with my brothers, while above us our grandma, mother and aunts discussed the latest births, deaths or marriages, and how all the principals were related or connected.

Or, about opening day of deer season, when, at the local high school, "All the boys, and a few girls, were absent." Yeah, here in my town too, where there's NO school on opening day. Or, when one of the Novak neighbors "sprinkled the tomatoes with sugar," I immediately thought of my dad, who ate his tomatoes that way, and had put me off tomatoes for nearly twenty years, until I tried them with salt, and found I loved them. Little stuff like this really rang true. But BAKER TOWERS, taken all together, is about bigger stuff too. I was especially drawn to the descriptions of the importance of religion in the lives of the miners' families, and the different parishes divided by nationality - Italian, Polish, Slovak, Ukrainian, and more.

The story covers several decades in the Novaks' lives, but I especially loved the part about the War years, with the oldest daughter moving to Washington, becoming part of a civilian army of workers for the war effort, living in cramped boarding house rooms and getting a first look at a wider world outside of Bakerton. I was reminded of a couple other home front novels - Marge Piercy's GONE TO SOLDIERS, a national bestseller from decades back, and another beautifully written novel called TILL MY BABY COMES HOME (2016), by Jean Ross Justice (the widow of former Poet Laureate, Donald Justice), published posthumously, and completely neglected.

Ms Haigh's novel has already been much reviewed and lavishly praised over the years, and rightfully so. BAKER TOWERS is a fascinating look at a town and it people, well researched, thoughtfully portrayed, and deeply moving. I didn't want it to end; it was that good. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. I'll say it again. I LOVED this book!

- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER ( )

the writing here is stellar. it might seem a little slow moving or slow paced, but i think it just reflects the life in a mining town, with little that changes or moves year to year. still, we get a lot from the family and the way they navigate staying or leaving, the expectations of the time, the neighborhood pockets (segregated by religion and ethnicity), and far more about how the women lived than we might usually see from this kind of story.

this is beautifully written and i will seek out more by this author.

"As a toddler, she'd been desperately attached to a doll she'd named after herself..." ( )

I thought it a slow start, but it really isn't. It has the pace of a small town and a few generations. Moving. Complicated as people are and simple as small towns seem. So glad I read it. ( )