Baker Towers by Jennifer Haigh

Baker Towers by Jennifer Haigh

ABOUT BAKER TOWERS

Bakerton is a community of company houses and church festivals, of union squabbles and firemen’s parades. Its neighborhoods include Little Italy, Swedetown, and Polish Hill. For its tight-knit citizens — and the five children of the Novak family — the 1940s will be a decade of excitement, tragedy, and stunning change. 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 to the men and women we now call the Greatest Generation. It is a feat of imagination from an extraordinary voice in American fiction, a writer of enormous power and skill.

MY THOUGHTS

This book captured my eye when it was first published. I love covers that have a nostalgic vibe to them. The colors on the cover are muted and somewhat drab which gives a clue to the atmosphere of the story. I don't mean that in bad way.

The story of the Novak family is not bright and cheery by any means. It is the story of a family who doesn't have an easy life. The Novaks live in a home owned by the company mine where Stanley Novak is a coal miner. The book begins with the death of Stanley. The story then focuses on the family and their survival. Life is not always pretty for them.

There are five Novak children. They all struggle in the way most blue collar families struggle. Some will do whatever it takes to leave the coal mining community and not end up like their father. The story meanders through all five children's lives as they become adults. Their saga is still on my mind long after I have finished the book.

The story is a quiet one. It doesn't move at break neck speeds, but at a slow pace, which reflects the time the story is set in. The story kept me captivated, even though it moves quietly and carefully.

Jennifer Haigh writes beautifully and her storytelling is wonderful. Her descriptions paint vivid pictures that I won't soon forget. Her glimpse into life in Baker Towers is both haunting and intriguing. I would love to see a second book so I could spend more time with the Novak family. This was my first Jennifer Haigh novel and certainly won't be my last.

I highly recommend this book and Jennifer Haigh's other novels.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jennifer Haigh is the author of the New York Times bestsellers The Condition; Baker Towers, winner of the 2006 PEN/L.L. Winship Award for outstanding book by a New England author; and Mrs. Kimble, which won the PEN/Hemingway Award for debut fiction. Her short stories have appeared in the Atlantic, Granta, the Saturday Evening Post, and many other publications. She lives in the Boston area.



Many thanks to TLC Book Tours for sending me this wonderful novel and allowing me to be part of the tour. Jennifer Haigh and her books are on tour this month. Be sure to check out the other tour posts here.

I received this book as part of the tour for my honest review.