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Search - Baker Towers
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Baker Towers Author: |
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Book Information
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Other Versions of this Book: Paperback, Hardcover, Audio Cassette (Unabridged), Audio CD (Unabridged), Audio CD
Book Description:
A stunning follow-up to her bestselling debut,
Mrs. Kimble, Jennifer Haigh returns with
Baker Towers, a compelling story of love and loss
in a western Pennsylvania mining town in
the years after World War II
Bakerton is a company town built on coal, a town of church festivals and ethnic neighborhoods, hunters' breakfasts and firemen's parades. Its children are raised in company houses -- three rooms upstairs, three rooms downstairs. Its ball club leads the coal company league. The twelve Baker mines offer good union jobs, and the looming black piles of mine dirt don't bother anyone. Called Baker Towers, they are local landmarks, clear evidence that the mines are booming. Baker Towers mean good wages and meat on the table, two weeks' paid vacation and presents under the Christmas tree.
The mines were not named for Bakerton; Bakerton was named for the mines. This is an important distinction. It explains the order of things.
Born and raised on Bakerton's Polish Hill, the five Novak children come of age during wartime, a thrilling era when the world seems on the verge of changing forever. The oldest, Georgie, serves on a minesweeper in the South Pacific and glimpses life beyond Bakerton, a promising future he is determined to secure at all costs. His sister Dorothy, a fragile beauty, takes a job in Washington, D.C., and finds she is unprepared for city life. Brilliant Joyce longs to devote herself to something of consequence but instead becomes the family's keystone, bitterly aware of the opportunities she might have had elsewhere. Sandy sails through life on looks and charm, and Lucy, the volatile baby, devours the family's attention and develops a bottomless appetite for love.
Baker Towers is a family saga and a love story, a hymn to a time and place long gone, to America's industrial past and the men and women we now call the Greatest Generation. This is a feat of imagination from an extraordinary new voice in American fiction, a writer of enormous power and skill.
Mrs. Kimble, Jennifer Haigh returns with
Baker Towers, a compelling story of love and loss
in a western Pennsylvania mining town in
the years after World War II
Bakerton is a company town built on coal, a town of church festivals and ethnic neighborhoods, hunters' breakfasts and firemen's parades. Its children are raised in company houses -- three rooms upstairs, three rooms downstairs. Its ball club leads the coal company league. The twelve Baker mines offer good union jobs, and the looming black piles of mine dirt don't bother anyone. Called Baker Towers, they are local landmarks, clear evidence that the mines are booming. Baker Towers mean good wages and meat on the table, two weeks' paid vacation and presents under the Christmas tree.
The mines were not named for Bakerton; Bakerton was named for the mines. This is an important distinction. It explains the order of things.
Born and raised on Bakerton's Polish Hill, the five Novak children come of age during wartime, a thrilling era when the world seems on the verge of changing forever. The oldest, Georgie, serves on a minesweeper in the South Pacific and glimpses life beyond Bakerton, a promising future he is determined to secure at all costs. His sister Dorothy, a fragile beauty, takes a job in Washington, D.C., and finds she is unprepared for city life. Brilliant Joyce longs to devote herself to something of consequence but instead becomes the family's keystone, bitterly aware of the opportunities she might have had elsewhere. Sandy sails through life on looks and charm, and Lucy, the volatile baby, devours the family's attention and develops a bottomless appetite for love.
Baker Towers is a family saga and a love story, a hymn to a time and place long gone, to America's industrial past and the men and women we now call the Greatest Generation. This is a feat of imagination from an extraordinary new voice in American fiction, a writer of enormous power and skill.
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Top Member Book Reviews
Lauri E. (
2 member(s) found this review helpful.
Excellent book - it made me kind of sad. You hear about these little coal towns dying...it's the end of a way of life. Nostalgic and full of great characters.
1 member(s) found this review helpful.
Another great book from Jennifer Haigh. Fast reads and shows you how life in a mining town really is.
1 member(s) found this review helpful.
wow, I loved this book , a book about a family,the choices they make a family the regrets they had a birth and a death of an era and a town.I could not put this book down I read it in less than a day.It was not a mystery but you definitely wanted to turn the page to find out what happened next. It was not a happy ending per say however it was satisfying in a way that and you find out that in the end the land lives on. I would so
recommend this book to anyone the story was so real.
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Please Rate these Book Reviews
The well-written and very realistic characters in this book tell a story that is all too common -- how the decisions we make when we are young can unknowlingly shape the rest of our lives. From Georgie, the oldest of the five Novak children, who was seemingly destined to leave the confines of the little Pennsylvania mining town; fragile Dorothy; responsible Joyce who leaves the military and a life otherwise filled with promise to care for her ailing mother and younger siblings; younger brother Sandy, who leads a shiftless life; to little Lucy (the family's bonus baby) who, although seemingly groomed for a promising life outside of Bakerton, but feels compelled to return.
The author truly captures the essence of a small mining community in post-WW II America, where, for the men, a lifetime of working in the mines is almost an expectation. For the women, few opportunities exist beyond keeping house and raising children in the company houses that fill Bakerton's ethnic neighborhoods. Life moves by slowly, predictably, with little desire for change. When the times and economy changes, the town of Bakerton gradually fades away, but with hope for the future.
Jennifer Haigh tells the story of the Novacs beautifully. I'm not normally one to be driven to read the book cover to cover without putting it down, but this time I couldn't help myself. I didn't want to stop reading.
This is a beautifully written book about a family and how the course of their lives is determined, in part, by their place of birth.
Jennifer Haigh makes the ordinary extraordinary.
incredible yet sad story...especially coming from a family of coal miners. A definite must read about coming of age, family hardships, and small town America...for me, it's always nice to get a glimpse. highly recommended!
Loved it. The characters are so interesting and I couldn't put it down. Great writing.
A novel of a mining town and growing up in the town. Very well written.
I have to say that I don't think this novel came close to "Mrs. Kimble". It certainly wasn't bad, but I expected more from her...
Story of love and loss in a mining town after World War II.
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