Jennifer Haigh has done it again for me, folks. Baker Towers may have been released six years prior to Faith, but it successfully continues the fascination I have for her work. Baker Towers was everything I wanted, and so much more. This blue-collar family saga beginning in the 1940s in a coal-mining town in Pennsylvania was absolutely magnificent. It is a genuine look into the lives of young men and women who helped set another block into the foundation of America and made history. 

Bakerton, Pennsylvania is made up of residents who are Swedish, Polish, and Italian immigrants, with the coal mine employing a good majority. In the Novak family, the home is traditional to the time and place. Rose and Stanley, first-generations to America, live in Polish Hill in company-owned housing. Rose, an Italian wife and mother, remains at home to take care of their five children, and her Polish husband, Stanley, works every day in the coal mine. It was never expected that he, provider of the family and gentle disciplinarian, would suffer a fatal heart attack leaving too early his wife and five children to make a place for themselves in a town and in a world that is rapidly changing.

This is the story of the five children who would be members of the Greatest Generation, living in a town whose existence thrives off the hulking mass of coal mined daily from deep in the mountain, resulting in Black Lung for miners and making widows of their wives. Each of the Novak children must find their way through life and whether it's enlisting in the military, or moving to Washington, D.C. and working for the government, or running away with no other goal but to just leave Bakerton, and who cares where you end up, their lives are ultimately filled with family, loss, love, and regrets, and it is a beautiful story with sincere contemplation on the painful choices each of them make. Combined with a glimpse into what life may have been like for those who lived during this time, ignoring the expected vintage nostalgia but instead strongly imbuing the story with remarkable authenticity, Baker Towers captures America during a time that will never be forgotten. The Novaks grow up, marry, and live their lives, and although some escape small-town life, over time they find that their paths invariably meander around and back to the very place that once made them want to flee.

This was impossible to put down, the story weaving between characters and historical events with an efficiency and skill that captured me from the very first page. Quite frankly, it swallowed me up in the time and even made me feel the aesthetics and intangibles; I could see and feel the outfits the characters wore, the jobs they took, and the cars they drove. I also could easily see this as a movie, and with all of HBO's recent endeavors into successful adaptations to the small screen, I think it would follow up quite nicely after their expert remake of Mildred Pierce this past summer, starring Kate Winslet.

Jennifer Haigh is just brilliant with her storytelling, and I decided that she is now one of my favorite authors. Her writing is expressive, moving, and thoughtful, and she has an astounding way to take tough subjects and events and turn them into the most painfully memorable moments of reading that I've had in the past year. I've enjoyed it all and can't wait to read Mrs. Kimble and The Condition next.

What I read over the weekend

In the interview with the author at the end of the book, it wasn't surprising to find that the small tidbits that made the story feel so authentic to the time, came from reading old magazines and noting advertisements of popular products and places. It made me a bit wistful for a hobby I have, so I picked up a few magazines from the 1940s on Saturday. I must admit, you can get lost in reading Life magazine, and over the weekend, I read a few editions from 1943. One issue included pictures from the celebrated photographer Margaret Bourke-White and her series of women in the steel mills. It was definitely a pleasure to read what the country was experiencing at the time, and I wanted to pick up Baker Towers right away and read it all over again. 

While I can't predict what 2012 will hold for me with all of the amazing books I hope I'll be reading, I brazenly will propose that Baker Towers will more than likely be in my list of favorite books read this year. Without question, this is my favorite for January 2012.

I loved this book and promise that if you enjoy historical fiction, family sagas, the Greatest Generation, and especially if you love Jennifer Haigh's writing, you will more than likely love this book as well.

Others said:

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Publisher: Harper Perennial

Release Date: 12/27/2005

Pages: 368

About the Author

Jennifer Haigh is the author of the New York Times bestseller Baker Towers, winner of the 2006 PEN/L.L. Winship Award for outstanding book by a New England author; Mrs. Kimble, which won the PEN/Hemingway Award for debut fiction and was also a finalist for the Book Sense Book of the Year; and The Condition.

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Many thanks to TLC Book Tours. In celebration of the release of Faith in paperback, all of Jennifer Haigh's books are on tour through February 2012. To read all of the reviews at each tour stop, click here.

A Walk About Town is a weekly feature hosted here at Coffee and a Book Chick. You do not need to have a book blog to join; any blogger can participate. Write about a spot in your town, or in another city you've visited, include the button for A Walk About Town, and add your link in the Linky below so we can all visit your post. You don't need to include a picture to participate. I will post on Thursdays, but you can post any day of that week. Just make sure to add your link to the most recent week's post here at Coffee and a Book Chick, and if you're on Twitter, use the hashtag #AWalkAboutTown.

Although this event happened a few months ago, I wanted to share a few quick pictures of the annual wine festival at Town Point Park in Norfolk, Virginia, right at waterside. The 2011 festival held in October was its 23rd year, and yes, it was quite the fun day. It was a beautiful and clear, crisp afternoon, and was a welcome event to reacquaint myself with an area I love. I encourage you to attend a wine festival in your area. You really can't go wrong with paying an entry fee and then wine-tasting away...

Over the weekend, I read one of the books I picked up at BEA last year. A Young Adult book (with a beautiful cover) focusing on ballet dancers at a fictional prestigious New York ballet company, I thought it might tip my personal reading scales for something different than what I normally read. I didn't expect that I would enjoy it as much as I did!

Bunheads is a term for a female ballet dancer, one who constantly wears her hair in a bun, which is the common hairstyle for any woman who performs ballet regularly and most especially, professionally. While the book focuses on Hannah, a nineteen-year-old who is trying to juggle relationships with those outside of the theater, the book is actually quite an insightful look into the life of the extremely disciplined dancers that bring the art of ballet to life. As the author Sophie Flack is a former ballet dancer herself, I did not have a difficult time at all believing in the world Hannah lived. It's clear that this may also be loosely based on the author's life, just from reading her biography. After all, she was a member of the New York City Ballet and performed in over 75 ballets at a young age.

At fourteen, Hannah's gift was astonishingly evident and with permission from her parents, moved alone from Massachusetts to New York on scholarship to attend the Manhattan Ballet Academy full-time. With the School of Arts providing the regular course load of writing, math, etc., Hannah is able to continue her schooling. As all of her classmates are ballet dancers as well, there is no turning back from this new life. It's the hope and dream of each of them that they may be able to graduate to become a member of the Manhattan Ballet and ultimately, to be promoted to principle dancer.

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Hannah's made it to the Manhattan Ballet as a "corps" dancer, a supporting cast dancer who could, with enough commitment, make it to be a star. With close friends who are all ballet dancers, each of their personalities shine through, whether sweet and supportive, or jealous and competitive. But when Hannah meets a young NYU student, Jacob, she begins to feel conflicted for what she thought she always wanted in her life and with what might be outside the theater, the "real" world, as the corps of dancers call it. None of them really know what it's like out there at all, as they live, eat, and breathe ballet, exercise, diet, and commitment to the art of dance. But Hannah begins to feel an urge that fulfillment in life might now be better found outside the walls of the Manhattan Ballet.

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For lack of a better way to phrase it, I was pleasantly surprised by this story. It is extremely well-told, with characters that genuinely bounded off the page with their dedication, discipline, and sometimes, dramatic and gossipy sides that was quite believable for a group of people so closely working together. While there are several ballet terms in the book, you don't need to be an expert in the craft to grasp it. I took ballet as a child (I felt fairly confident that Mikhail Baryshnikov and I were meant to marry one day), but I soon found I wasn't as coordinated as I needed to be and dropped it soon after, so I don't remember anything but the basics (plìe, pirouette, etc.) But even if the terms for the movements are confusing, it's not necessary to have the accurate image in your mind, as you can pretty much ascertain that it's a lot of amazingly difficult twists, turns, pirouettes, and leaps. All things aside, it's a lesson to the reader of the complete exhaustion and intense scrutiny of the body that a ballet dancer will go through.

Which is important to point out, of course. Female ballet dancers, like runway models, are expected to have nary an ounce of fat on them, and the puberty that they go through is ultimately delayed because of their intense workouts from an early age. By the time the natural growth of their bodies begins to take womanly shape, it's another battle for them to go through to work out more, diet more, all to ensure that their shape remains lean, and quite frankly, stick-like. It's this excruciating battle that Hannah also fights with that was interesting to read. I felt horribly for them all and wish it were different.

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I relished the glimpses of the logistical elements of the tools professional dancers used, particularly their beautiful pointe shoes and how they wore them in. I had no idea how many pairs of pointe shoes that the dancers go through in a week. Hannah and her friends can go through eight pairs in a week. Eight! It's those little things that shaped the story nicely and was extremely interesting to read. I'm so glad I spent the past weekend with it.

The ultimate finale of this story was surprising and sent an excellent message. I enjoyed every bit of this book. I hope more YA enthusiasts get a chance to read this book and I encourage those who don't normally read YA to give it an honest go. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

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Publisher: Little Brown Books Young Readers
Release Date: 10/10/2011
Pages: 304

About the Author

Sophie Flack was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. At age seven, Sophie began taking ballet lessons at the Boston Ballet School. She accelerated her ballet training, and after seeing a videotape of Patricia McBride dancing Balanchine's Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux, Sophie decided that she wanted to dance with the New York City Ballet. At fifteen, Sophie was accepted into the School of American Ballet on full scholarship, and moved to New York City. At age seventeen, Sophie joined the New York City Ballet as an apprentice and became a member of the corps de ballet the following year. As a member, Sophie performed in over 75 ballets. Bunheads is her first novel.

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I cannot wait to return back from my business trip and dive into this one. It's part of the Beacon Hill Mystery series, and I haven't read this sort before, but I think I might like it, just based on the first few paragraphs of the book. What do you think?

Boston: The January thaw, 1892. A watery gloom hung over the city like a shroud.

Day after day of heavy, relentless rain had threatened to submerge the new-filled Back Bay, and the miniature lagoon in the Public Garden had overflowed its banks. On Beacon Hill, streams of water pounded the brick sidewalks and cascaded down the narrow streets, splashing women's voluminous skirts, splattering horses with mud up to their blinkers. People clung to their firesides, waiting for winter to return.

In the South End, Officer Joseph Flynn of the Boston police was making his rounds. he had been on the force for less than a year, and he was eager to do well in this job which until recently would not have been given to an Irishman like himself. When he saw the shape on the ground halfway down the alley behind West Brookline Street, he paused. Because it was night, and very dark in that district, he could not immediately tell what the shape was. A heap of refuse, he thought, or a pile of rags. Or, at worst, some drunken tramp from the nearby railroad yards.

First Chapter, First Paragraph Tuesday Intros is a weekly featured hosted by Bibliophile by the Sea. To participate, share your selection from the book you're reading.