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News from Heaven: Acclaimed Short Stories of Family Life and Redemption in a Small Pennsylvania Town
In News from Heaven, Jennifer Haigh—bestselling author of Faith and The Condition—returns to the territory of her acclaimed novel Baker Towers with a collection of short stories set in and around the fictionalized coal-mining town of Bakerton, Pennsylvania.
Exploring themes of restlessness, regret, redemption and acceptance, Jennifer Haigh depicts men and women of different generations shaped by dreams and haunted by disappointments.
Janet Maslin of the New York Times has called Haigh's Bakerton stories "utterly, entrancingly alive on the page," comparable to Richard Russo's Empire Falls.
Exploring themes of restlessness, regret, redemption and acceptance, Jennifer Haigh depicts men and women of different generations shaped by dreams and haunted by disappointments.
Janet Maslin of the New York Times has called Haigh's Bakerton stories "utterly, entrancingly alive on the page," comparable to Richard Russo's Empire Falls.
244 pages, Hardcover
First published January 29, 2013
145 people are currently reading
1728 people want to read
About the author
Jennifer Haigh
24 books1,156 followersJennifer Haigh is an American novelist and short story writer. Her new novel MERCY STREET takes on the contentious issue of abortion rights, following the daily life of Claudia Birch, a counselor at an embattled women's clinic in Boston.
Her last novel, HEAT AND LIGHT, looks at a Pennsylvania town divided by the controversy over fracking, and was named a Best Book of 2016 by The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and NPR. Earlier books include the novel FAITH, about a beloved Boston priest accused of a molesting a child in his parish, and THE CONDITION, the story of a woman diagnosed in childhood with Turner's Syndrome.
Haigh's critically acclaimed debut novel MRS. KIMBLE won the PEN/Hemingway Award for first fiction. Her second novel, the New York Times bestseller BAKER TOWERS, won the PEN/L. L. Winship Award for outstanding book by a New England author. Her short story collection NEWS FROM HEAVEN won of the Massachusetts Book Award and the PEN New England Award in Fiction. A Guggenheim Foundation Fellow and a graduate of the Iowa Writer's Workshop, she writes frequently for The New York Times Book Review. Her fiction has been published in eighteen languages.
Her last novel, HEAT AND LIGHT, looks at a Pennsylvania town divided by the controversy over fracking, and was named a Best Book of 2016 by The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and NPR. Earlier books include the novel FAITH, about a beloved Boston priest accused of a molesting a child in his parish, and THE CONDITION, the story of a woman diagnosed in childhood with Turner's Syndrome.
Haigh's critically acclaimed debut novel MRS. KIMBLE won the PEN/Hemingway Award for first fiction. Her second novel, the New York Times bestseller BAKER TOWERS, won the PEN/L. L. Winship Award for outstanding book by a New England author. Her short story collection NEWS FROM HEAVEN won of the Massachusetts Book Award and the PEN New England Award in Fiction. A Guggenheim Foundation Fellow and a graduate of the Iowa Writer's Workshop, she writes frequently for The New York Times Book Review. Her fiction has been published in eighteen languages.
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January 27, 2022
The news is not always good.
Jennifer Haigh, clearly mining a favorite seam, manages to hit the motherlode again in her new tales of Bakerton, PA. Her 2005 novel, Baker Towers, painted a three-decade portrait of the small mining town, from 1944 into the 1970s, focusing on the lives of its residents, and most particularly, the five siblings of her fictional Novak family. In returning to Bakerton, Haigh brings back several of the characters from her earlier work, completing some unfinished stories of the family, and expanding her scope as well. There are plenty of faces, even beyond those of the Novaks, that will be familiar to readers of the earlier book. In News From Heaven Jennifer Haigh demonstrates once more the immense talent for which she has rightfully come to be known.
Jennifer Haigh - image from The Globe and Mail
She has not been idle in the eight years since she introduced Bakerton, PA to the world. In 2008, The Condition , was released, an excellent a multi-generational family drama set in New England. In 2011, she produced the exquisite Faith, about a priest accused of sexually abusing a child. In that novel and in other work she showed a power that put her at the top level of contemporary fiction writers, and she just keeps on getting better. But, apparently, Haigh had been puttering with Bakerton tales ever since Baker Towers came out.
This is a book about longing, loneliness, about secrets, about wanting to flee the stifling confines not just of small town life but of responsibility and living with one’s choices. Maybe about pleading with fate. Yet it is also about the pull that our homes can have on our hearts. The stories are filled with yearnings, some met, many not. Disappointment shuffles through these stories. Secrets are revealed, often to dark effect. These are stories about change, in the world and in her characters.
It is not necessary to have read Baker Towers in order to appreciate the strength of the writing on display here, but it certainly helps to have done so in order to get the fullest picture of her players.
===============================THE STORIES
Beast and Birds opens the collection in the past. Sixteen-year-old Annie Lubicki is engaged to work in the household of an Upper West Side Manhattan Jewish family in the 1930s. The family has a son whose destiny it is to become a scholar. We are given a servant’s eye look at life in NYC as Annie experiences it on her first time away from home. On a weekend while the adults are away, Annie is charged with caring for the young man. He is unwell and cannot accompany his parents on their trip. He and Annie have developed a relationship that is nothing but sweet.
In Something Sweet, an ironic title, Haigh brings back teacher Viola Peale from BT. She is much taken with a student, a boy who has a natural way with girls, is a gifted salesman who also demonstrates a flair for decoration. He offers her a lemon drop. “It’s nice to have something sweet,” he says. Of course he incurs the wrath of those maybe not so smooth. During the summer visit of a young relation Viola is smitten with a hunky second cousin who is very wrong for her--In a trance of longing, Viola sat on the grass, hugging her knees to her chest--and her desire is harshly rewarded. The young student knows he will never be accepted in the town and looks for a way out. The sweetness here is of the bitter variety.
In Broken Star young Regina has a magical month in the summer of 1974, when her cool Aunt Melanie comes to stay with the family for a spell, and provides a wonderful assist during a time of growth and change. Gina thrives with Melanie’s encouragement but still has concerns about life, and her future, a girl born to a farming family, who is not all that interested in the land, a girl who fears getting stuck.
A Place in the Sun continues the unfinished story of Sandy Novak from BT. Despite his charm, beauty and certain skills, Sandy has never managed to get or stay ahead. He seems always on the run and has a gambling compulsion. Still, he and his sister, Joyce, maintain some sort of a connection, even if that usually means her sending him money. Trying to straighten up he takes a job at a diner in North Hollywood
To The Stars looks at the town’s reaction to Sandy’s passing, with particular focus on Joyce, and her feelings about her own choices. Sandy was once a chauffeur to the stars but never managed to become a star himself.
In Favorite Son, Mitch Stanek, a studly jock, had been expected to coast to a career in professional sports. But something is amiss when he goes away to college on a full scholarship. We see him, back in Bakerton, married with kids, and out of work when Mine #11 shuts down, putting 900 out of work. Joyce Novak’s daughter, Rebecca, narrates the tale, and has special knowledge about Mitch, that tells us whether he was destined for fame, or not. It is in this story that we get the quote that births the collection’s title: The white flakes landed like news from heaven: notes from elsewhere, fallen from the stars.
The Bottom of Things introduces Ray Wojick, 52, back in town for his parents’ 50th anniversary party, with his pregnant second wife. Ray is looking to get to the bottom of things, his ultimate impact on his late brother’s fate, how his father was able to raise him, when he married a woman with a three-year old, how Ray’s first marriage came to be and came to end, his alienation from his children from that marriage, and how to cope once he learns what he needs to know.
Sunny Baker used to be a joyous kid, thus the name, but in What Remains we see what has become of her. When her parents were killed in a plane crash her life took a dark turn, and she never quite recovered. We see her through a series of relationships, each of which add more junk to her property and take a piece more out of what is left of her. The story is paralleled by the town wanting to attract construction of a new prison. Do the math.
Finally, Desiderata closes the book with Joyce Novak mourning the death of her husband, and remembering her dead son, and how he was lost. It also tells the tale of an inspirational teacher and a husband who had married a woman who did not or could not love him enough.
Review first posted - February 2013
Publication dates
----------January 29, 2013 - hardcover
----------January 7, 2014 - trade paperback
The trade paperback came out on January 7, 2014
Jennifer Haigh, clearly mining a favorite seam, manages to hit the motherlode again in her new tales of Bakerton, PA. Her 2005 novel, Baker Towers, painted a three-decade portrait of the small mining town, from 1944 into the 1970s, focusing on the lives of its residents, and most particularly, the five siblings of her fictional Novak family. In returning to Bakerton, Haigh brings back several of the characters from her earlier work, completing some unfinished stories of the family, and expanding her scope as well. There are plenty of faces, even beyond those of the Novaks, that will be familiar to readers of the earlier book. In News From Heaven Jennifer Haigh demonstrates once more the immense talent for which she has rightfully come to be known.
Jennifer Haigh - image from The Globe and Mail
She has not been idle in the eight years since she introduced Bakerton, PA to the world. In 2008, The Condition , was released, an excellent a multi-generational family drama set in New England. In 2011, she produced the exquisite Faith, about a priest accused of sexually abusing a child. In that novel and in other work she showed a power that put her at the top level of contemporary fiction writers, and she just keeps on getting better. But, apparently, Haigh had been puttering with Bakerton tales ever since Baker Towers came out.
I didn’t, for a long time, imagine publishing them as a collection. I wrote them one at a time, in between novels or drafts of novels. And after about ten years of this, I realized that they belonged together in a book.So in a way, despite moving from Pennsylvania to the Boston area, one could say that in News from Heaven, Jennifer Haigh returns to Bakerton. But in a very real sense she never left.
This is a book about longing, loneliness, about secrets, about wanting to flee the stifling confines not just of small town life but of responsibility and living with one’s choices. Maybe about pleading with fate. Yet it is also about the pull that our homes can have on our hearts. The stories are filled with yearnings, some met, many not. Disappointment shuffles through these stories. Secrets are revealed, often to dark effect. These are stories about change, in the world and in her characters.
…good fiction always begins with complex, well-developed characters, and to write those characters I have to know where they came from. I imagine them as children, their fears and frustrations, the rooms where they slept at night, and I find it all so interesting that I have to write about it. I have come to accept that — in my hands, anyway — every story becomes a family story.As with Baker Towers, most of the action in the book takes place in Bakerton, with a few forays beyond, and the great majority of her characters are women. There are ten stories in the collection. All of them will make you feel. Four of the first five look upward, in their titles at least, while the latter five seem to look down. There are moments of awakening, moments of glorious freedom and possibility that shine through this sooty, declining place, lives that find meaning, whether real or faux, whether passing or permanent. But it seems that for most of the inhabitants, whether they remain in Bakerton or have sought greener pastures elsewhere, the news from on high is that they have to get by with what they can and not look for a paradise on earth. That said, Haigh’s writing is heaven-sent, her ability to portray real, breathing people is celestial and her talent for portraying place is rapturous.
It is not necessary to have read Baker Towers in order to appreciate the strength of the writing on display here, but it certainly helps to have done so in order to get the fullest picture of her players.
===============================THE STORIES
Beast and Birds opens the collection in the past. Sixteen-year-old Annie Lubicki is engaged to work in the household of an Upper West Side Manhattan Jewish family in the 1930s. The family has a son whose destiny it is to become a scholar. We are given a servant’s eye look at life in NYC as Annie experiences it on her first time away from home. On a weekend while the adults are away, Annie is charged with caring for the young man. He is unwell and cannot accompany his parents on their trip. He and Annie have developed a relationship that is nothing but sweet.
There are many words for what she’d felt as she watched him sleep, many words in many languages, but the one she knows is longingDid they or didn’t they?
In Something Sweet, an ironic title, Haigh brings back teacher Viola Peale from BT. She is much taken with a student, a boy who has a natural way with girls, is a gifted salesman who also demonstrates a flair for decoration. He offers her a lemon drop. “It’s nice to have something sweet,” he says. Of course he incurs the wrath of those maybe not so smooth. During the summer visit of a young relation Viola is smitten with a hunky second cousin who is very wrong for her--In a trance of longing, Viola sat on the grass, hugging her knees to her chest--and her desire is harshly rewarded. The young student knows he will never be accepted in the town and looks for a way out. The sweetness here is of the bitter variety.
In Broken Star young Regina has a magical month in the summer of 1974, when her cool Aunt Melanie comes to stay with the family for a spell, and provides a wonderful assist during a time of growth and change. Gina thrives with Melanie’s encouragement but still has concerns about life, and her future, a girl born to a farming family, who is not all that interested in the land, a girl who fears getting stuck.
My uncles…were like all the men I knew then, soybean and dairy farmers who spoke rarely and then mainly about the weather. Yet unlikely as it seemed, I accepted that these men had the power to transform. My aunts had been pretty, lively girls—one stubborn, one mischievous, one coquettish, according to my mother—though somehow all three had matured into exactly the same woman: plump, cheerful, adept at pie making and counted cross-stitch, smelling of vanilla and Rose Milk hand lotion. That I would someday become that same woman terrified me. My only greater fear was that nobody would choose me, and I would become nothing.Years later, after marrying, living abroad and having written a book, Regina learns a tragic secret about her aunt, and the cost of her own separateness.
A Place in the Sun continues the unfinished story of Sandy Novak from BT. Despite his charm, beauty and certain skills, Sandy has never managed to get or stay ahead. He seems always on the run and has a gambling compulsion. Still, he and his sister, Joyce, maintain some sort of a connection, even if that usually means her sending him money. Trying to straighten up he takes a job at a diner in North Hollywood
She had hired him off the street. Bleary, hungover, he’d wandered in for breakfast after an all-night card game. A sign in the window said HELP WANTED. Can you cook? Vera Gold asked.It is not long before Sandy and statuesque, red-headed Vera are an item, to the chagrin of Vera’s much older husband. Of course this complicates Sandy’s relationship with a young Canadian cutie, who is looking for more from him that he is interested in giving.
He looked down at his greasy plate. Better than this? Sure. You bet.
”That’s where I used to work,” he said, pointing. The familiar sign filled him with an old longing, the looping S with its tall graceful curvesAnd across it all he ponders his family back east, and the odds of life taking a positive turn.
The Sands A PLACE IN THE SUN
“Is that where we’re going?”
For a moment he was tempted. The town had a short memory, and seven years had passed. Still he wouldn’t chance it. He’d been known there, known and recognized. Sandy from the Sands. It wasn’t worth the risk.
To The Stars looks at the town’s reaction to Sandy’s passing, with particular focus on Joyce, and her feelings about her own choices. Sandy was once a chauffeur to the stars but never managed to become a star himself.
She is thinking not of his death but of that earlier departure, his disappearance like a magic trick, as dizzying and complete. His manic and determined flight from Bakerton, from the family, from her…and yet Joyce could never leave them [her family], run off to California or to Africa, as her younger siblings have done. Freedom is, to her, unimaginable, as exotic as walking on the moon.Thrift introduces Agnes Lubicki, a nurse who has lived her life in service to others and found herself with no way to have anything for herself. Until a man enters her life, and Agnes gives up everything for him. Is this what she’d been saving for?
In Favorite Son, Mitch Stanek, a studly jock, had been expected to coast to a career in professional sports. But something is amiss when he goes away to college on a full scholarship. We see him, back in Bakerton, married with kids, and out of work when Mine #11 shuts down, putting 900 out of work. Joyce Novak’s daughter, Rebecca, narrates the tale, and has special knowledge about Mitch, that tells us whether he was destined for fame, or not. It is in this story that we get the quote that births the collection’s title: The white flakes landed like news from heaven: notes from elsewhere, fallen from the stars.
The Bottom of Things introduces Ray Wojick, 52, back in town for his parents’ 50th anniversary party, with his pregnant second wife. Ray is looking to get to the bottom of things, his ultimate impact on his late brother’s fate, how his father was able to raise him, when he married a woman with a three-year old, how Ray’s first marriage came to be and came to end, his alienation from his children from that marriage, and how to cope once he learns what he needs to know.
Sunny Baker used to be a joyous kid, thus the name, but in What Remains we see what has become of her. When her parents were killed in a plane crash her life took a dark turn, and she never quite recovered. We see her through a series of relationships, each of which add more junk to her property and take a piece more out of what is left of her. The story is paralleled by the town wanting to attract construction of a new prison. Do the math.
Finally, Desiderata closes the book with Joyce Novak mourning the death of her husband, and remembering her dead son, and how he was lost. It also tells the tale of an inspirational teacher and a husband who had married a woman who did not or could not love him enough.
Review first posted - February 2013
Publication dates
----------January 29, 2013 - hardcover
----------January 7, 2014 - trade paperback
The trade paperback came out on January 7, 2014
March 22, 2014
The benefit of being introduced to an author like Jennifer Haigh and her multi-generational saga “Baker Towers” years after the first publication is being able to continue the story without much of a pause. And, so I did.
“Baker Towers” introduces you to Bakerton, Pennsylvania from the 1940’s into the 1970s. Returning to Bakerton in “News from Heaven: The Bakerton Stories” Haigh introduces us to new characters and new stories connected to Bakerton in some way, shape or form. Life in Bakerton is still rarely an easy one, but regardless of where your home is or was, Haigh gives you a glimpse of life in a small mining town as it transitions through the years. Many of the characters are familiar, but what is most familiar is the theme that there is no place like home, and maybe that some people can’t go home again because they never really left. Home shapes you, who you were and who you become in all the good and in all the bad. Being away from home can break your heart as easily as going home can when every corner is a ghost of a memory that haunts you.
“Again and again she answers the question: “Heart failure. It was very sudden.” The story is her invention. Certainly it is kinder than the truth, welcome as a rodent: He swallowed a bottle of pills. He took his own life. Like all the best lies, it contains a grain of truth. What is despair, really, but a failure of heart?”
April 17, 2013
Methinks I like Ms. Haigh better as a short-storyist than as a novelist. This is a pitch-perfect collection of interconnected stories about a dying Pennsylvania coal-mining town. In my Forest Service days, I lived for awhile in a dying logging town, and the feel is much the same. Rumors take on the status of myth, the locals never forget a slight or a good deed, and families fall apart in direct proportion to the lack of opportunity and the rarity of hope.
March 24, 2015
Everyone knows a town like Bakerton. It’s that town you might have driven through – on your way from here to there -- where “the neighbors wanted nothing more from life than they already had: steady work, a new Chevy each year, weekends in front o the television drinking beer and watching ball.” It’s that town with a church and a bar on every corner. It’s been immortalized in classics like Our Town and Winesburg, Ohio.
Jennifer Haigh’s genius is to cast her laser spotlight on the seemingly ordinary people of Bakerton to cull extraordinary stories of hope, regret, yearning, restlessness, and at times, fulfillment. In her series of interconnected stories, characters that might have lurked forever in the shadows reveal depth, pathos, and surprises.
In the very first story, a teenage girl takes a position as a live-in maid for an upper-class Jewish family on New York’s tony upper West Side; it feels like a cultural displacement. An act of kindness is misinterpreted and her stay there is short.
In another, Broken Star, another young girl meets her not-much-older Aunt Melanie whom she instantly connects with; later on, she inadvertently learns a shocking family secret that will forever change how she views herself.
In yet another, A Place In The Sun, a 30-ish year old man named Sandy escapes the town but not the gravitating pull of going home: “The town he’d fled, where mines had killed has father; the bleak small-town life worse than jail, a prison from which no one escaped. And yet he had considered it: driving back east with his bride beside him…”
Each portrait is lovingly rendered: a middle-age spinster who trusts her instincts against all odds and experiences love for the first time in her life…a one-time high-school football star who tastes the glory but harbors a secret that dooms him to eventual failure…a successful brother – dubbed “J.R” by the town after J.R. Ewing – who feels guilt about letting his younger brother fall through the cracks. News From Heaven redefines the word “home” and what it takes to define our place inside and outside of it.
Jennifer Haigh’s genius is to cast her laser spotlight on the seemingly ordinary people of Bakerton to cull extraordinary stories of hope, regret, yearning, restlessness, and at times, fulfillment. In her series of interconnected stories, characters that might have lurked forever in the shadows reveal depth, pathos, and surprises.
In the very first story, a teenage girl takes a position as a live-in maid for an upper-class Jewish family on New York’s tony upper West Side; it feels like a cultural displacement. An act of kindness is misinterpreted and her stay there is short.
In another, Broken Star, another young girl meets her not-much-older Aunt Melanie whom she instantly connects with; later on, she inadvertently learns a shocking family secret that will forever change how she views herself.
In yet another, A Place In The Sun, a 30-ish year old man named Sandy escapes the town but not the gravitating pull of going home: “The town he’d fled, where mines had killed has father; the bleak small-town life worse than jail, a prison from which no one escaped. And yet he had considered it: driving back east with his bride beside him…”
Each portrait is lovingly rendered: a middle-age spinster who trusts her instincts against all odds and experiences love for the first time in her life…a one-time high-school football star who tastes the glory but harbors a secret that dooms him to eventual failure…a successful brother – dubbed “J.R” by the town after J.R. Ewing – who feels guilt about letting his younger brother fall through the cracks. News From Heaven redefines the word “home” and what it takes to define our place inside and outside of it.
March 17, 2018
News from Heaven is a book of loosely connected stories set in the coal mining town of Bakerton, PA. I usually have a collection of short stories going that I dip into a couple times a week when I'm not in the mood to become involved in a novel. Not this book. Once started, it demanded to be read. Haigh writes so well and her characters are so alive that I could not stop turning the pages.
March 16, 2013
2013 is my year of rediscovering our local library in an attempt to keep my book buying habit from bankrupting my family. So far it's been working, if imperfectly. I'm buying fewer books and most of the volumes I've read and returned are ones I've enjoyed, but do not regret only possessing on a transitory basis. Jennifer Haigh's new collection of short stories bucks this trend. I will return my library copy, but I will immediately head to the store for one of my own so I can re-read and underline to my heart's content.
Primarily set in the western Pennsylvania coal town of Bakerton, or following people who are marked by their relationship to this mythic representation of a place that rises and falls with the 20th century, Haigh's book will remind many of Sherwood Anderson's 'Winseburg, Ohio' and Elizabeth Strout's 'Olive Kitteridge', but it is itself worthy of being compared to. In these stories Haigh weaves the connections and dislocations of small town life into a contradictory web of human tragedy and grace in language that is accessible and compelling. Characters come to life, and while many of the stories are tragic, reading them felt like a celebration of the moments of transcendence rather than a bleak recitation of all that can and does go wrong in life.
Religion, class and ethnicity are omnipresent here, but Haigh never judges her characters harshly for their shortcomings, but allows them just to be. Her writing is unfussy, cinematically vivid, and peppered with humor. In 'Beast and Bird' the opening story in the collection, a young girl from Bakerton is shipped to New York City to work as a maid for a Jewish family because Polish speaking help was useful in communicating instructions about keeping Kosher. The only problem is that no one has bothered to tell her they are Jewish or why she needs to follow the elaborate protocol in preparing food. Annie's logical conclusion is that her new mistress is simply crazy, "Annie nodded, keeping her eyes on the floor. She thought of the Klezek boy at home, who heard voices; a neighbor lady who scrubbed her hands until the skin cracked an bled. If Mrs. Nudelman were poor, her madness would be simpler; wealth permitted this elaborate variant." It's funny, touching and utterly believable.
In a year that has already seen at least two prominent short story collections make the NYT bestseller list, I hope Haigh's lovely volume doesn't get shunted aside by readers that think they've hit their quota of short stories. She deserves a broad audience for this work and I may have to buy some extra copies to do what I can to be sure she gets it.
Primarily set in the western Pennsylvania coal town of Bakerton, or following people who are marked by their relationship to this mythic representation of a place that rises and falls with the 20th century, Haigh's book will remind many of Sherwood Anderson's 'Winseburg, Ohio' and Elizabeth Strout's 'Olive Kitteridge', but it is itself worthy of being compared to. In these stories Haigh weaves the connections and dislocations of small town life into a contradictory web of human tragedy and grace in language that is accessible and compelling. Characters come to life, and while many of the stories are tragic, reading them felt like a celebration of the moments of transcendence rather than a bleak recitation of all that can and does go wrong in life.
Religion, class and ethnicity are omnipresent here, but Haigh never judges her characters harshly for their shortcomings, but allows them just to be. Her writing is unfussy, cinematically vivid, and peppered with humor. In 'Beast and Bird' the opening story in the collection, a young girl from Bakerton is shipped to New York City to work as a maid for a Jewish family because Polish speaking help was useful in communicating instructions about keeping Kosher. The only problem is that no one has bothered to tell her they are Jewish or why she needs to follow the elaborate protocol in preparing food. Annie's logical conclusion is that her new mistress is simply crazy, "Annie nodded, keeping her eyes on the floor. She thought of the Klezek boy at home, who heard voices; a neighbor lady who scrubbed her hands until the skin cracked an bled. If Mrs. Nudelman were poor, her madness would be simpler; wealth permitted this elaborate variant." It's funny, touching and utterly believable.
In a year that has already seen at least two prominent short story collections make the NYT bestseller list, I hope Haigh's lovely volume doesn't get shunted aside by readers that think they've hit their quota of short stories. She deserves a broad audience for this work and I may have to buy some extra copies to do what I can to be sure she gets it.
January 27, 2013
These are blue collared short stories, the lives of working men and woman, all set in the mining town of Bakerton. It is helpful but not necessary to have read Baker Towers, many of the characters are here in these short stories. Stories that span the time frame of the beginning of the mines operations. the dying of the mines and the slow death of a town, which at one time had employed over nine-hundred men. It is the story of those who went away, some successful, others who were not and came back. A nostalgic look at a community long gone, who once lived in company housing and shopped in company stores. A community who married in VFW halls, and helped each other out, a community that knew each others neighbors, which was sometimes good and sometimes not. I loved this grouping of stories, they are real, they have life. ARC from publisher.
February 19, 2013
I have one shelf on my many, many bookshelves devoted to my all-time favorite books. Jennifer Haigh's debut novel Mrs. Kimble holds a place of honor there. She is remarkable writer, and her last novel Faith just reaffirmed my belief that she is one of the best fiction writers out there.
She recently published a short story collection, News From Heaven: The Bakerton Stories, set in different eras in the coal mining town of Bakerton, Pennsylvania. Some of the characters were featured in her previous novel, Baker Towers.
Each of the ten stories is moving, and anyone who has lived in a small town with one major employer will recognize the people in these stories. Haigh's describes people in just a few sentences and you get them right away. Teenage Regina describes her mother this way in Broken Star:
"She greeted all presents this way- you shouldn't have- no matter how worthy the occasion or how trifling the gift. It was a habit born of embarrassment. No gift- even one she'd always wished for- was worth drawing attention to herself."
I feel like I know this woman because I know people just like her.
She also has such a sense of place, as with this sentence from the same story:
"Night was falling as we left the bus station, an amenity that, until then, I hadn't known the town possessed."
There are many people who live lives in a small box, and even those who live in a large city may contain themselves to just a few blocks.
There were a few stories that really moved me. A Place in the Sun is about Sandy Novak, one of the characters from Baker Towers. Sandy is handsome man who left Bakerton to head west. He ends up living hand-to-mouth, bartending here, working as short-order cook there. He sleeps with his boss' wife, then steals from the boss and takes off to Vegas with a younger woman. Life hasn't turned out the way he hoped, and he thinks he has one last chance for a big score.
Sandy's story continues back in Bakerton in To The Stars, where Sandy's siblings Joyce, Dorothy and George are left to deal with the fallout Sandy leaves behind. We see the family dynamic in this encounter about Joyce:
"She accepts condolences and prayers. It is her role, always: the public face of the family. Dorothy, whose backwardness is known and accepted, busies herself in the kitchen. George is nowhere to be found."
Again, in just a few sentences we know so much about this family and each sibling's place in it.
We see what happens to the high school football hero who can't make it in college in Favorite Son, which also has the best line in the book:
"For a certain kind of teenager, a small town is a prison. For another, it is a stage."
A lonely nurse meets a handsome younger man and her life changes in Thrift. What Remains tells the sad story of Sunny Baker, the last remaining descendant of the Baker family, the founders of the Bakerton.
The story that moves me most is The Bottom of Things, which features Ray, someone who made it out of Bakerton and ended up with a good life in Houston. Ray reluctantly goes home for his parents 50th anniversary party, and feels guilty for what he left behind. His has no relationship with his sons since he divorced their mother years ago. His brother Kenny has never gotten over his time in Vietnam; it is this relationship that seems to hurt the most.
News From Heaven is about family, relationships, loyalty, guilt, and the sacrifices people make. It's about the people who live in this decaying town and how that decay affects them. As I read this, I felt like I was peeking in the windows of these people's homes and watching them live their lives. The lyrical writing soars, and I wish I was reading this again for the first time. It's one of the best books so far in 2013.
She recently published a short story collection, News From Heaven: The Bakerton Stories, set in different eras in the coal mining town of Bakerton, Pennsylvania. Some of the characters were featured in her previous novel, Baker Towers.
Each of the ten stories is moving, and anyone who has lived in a small town with one major employer will recognize the people in these stories. Haigh's describes people in just a few sentences and you get them right away. Teenage Regina describes her mother this way in Broken Star:
"She greeted all presents this way- you shouldn't have- no matter how worthy the occasion or how trifling the gift. It was a habit born of embarrassment. No gift- even one she'd always wished for- was worth drawing attention to herself."
I feel like I know this woman because I know people just like her.
She also has such a sense of place, as with this sentence from the same story:
"Night was falling as we left the bus station, an amenity that, until then, I hadn't known the town possessed."
There are many people who live lives in a small box, and even those who live in a large city may contain themselves to just a few blocks.
There were a few stories that really moved me. A Place in the Sun is about Sandy Novak, one of the characters from Baker Towers. Sandy is handsome man who left Bakerton to head west. He ends up living hand-to-mouth, bartending here, working as short-order cook there. He sleeps with his boss' wife, then steals from the boss and takes off to Vegas with a younger woman. Life hasn't turned out the way he hoped, and he thinks he has one last chance for a big score.
Sandy's story continues back in Bakerton in To The Stars, where Sandy's siblings Joyce, Dorothy and George are left to deal with the fallout Sandy leaves behind. We see the family dynamic in this encounter about Joyce:
"She accepts condolences and prayers. It is her role, always: the public face of the family. Dorothy, whose backwardness is known and accepted, busies herself in the kitchen. George is nowhere to be found."
Again, in just a few sentences we know so much about this family and each sibling's place in it.
We see what happens to the high school football hero who can't make it in college in Favorite Son, which also has the best line in the book:
"For a certain kind of teenager, a small town is a prison. For another, it is a stage."
A lonely nurse meets a handsome younger man and her life changes in Thrift. What Remains tells the sad story of Sunny Baker, the last remaining descendant of the Baker family, the founders of the Bakerton.
The story that moves me most is The Bottom of Things, which features Ray, someone who made it out of Bakerton and ended up with a good life in Houston. Ray reluctantly goes home for his parents 50th anniversary party, and feels guilty for what he left behind. His has no relationship with his sons since he divorced their mother years ago. His brother Kenny has never gotten over his time in Vietnam; it is this relationship that seems to hurt the most.
News From Heaven is about family, relationships, loyalty, guilt, and the sacrifices people make. It's about the people who live in this decaying town and how that decay affects them. As I read this, I felt like I was peeking in the windows of these people's homes and watching them live their lives. The lyrical writing soars, and I wish I was reading this again for the first time. It's one of the best books so far in 2013.
April 10, 2013
Years ago, long before she became a gifted novelist, I worked with Jennifer Haigh. So when I stumbled across Mrs. Kimble, her first novel, in an airport book store years ago, I had to buy and read it. I've been reading everything she writes ever since. News From Heaven is a collection of short stories all about the same place: an imaginary coal mining town called Bakerton. If you read her novel Baker Towers, some of the characters will be familiar. If you didn't read it, this collection still stands on its own. I will admit that I usually struggle with short stories. There are just too many stopping points usually for me to finish a whole book of them. This collection, however, was different. Each story seemed progresses to the next. All of the characters know one another, so each new story adds a new perspective that helps you understand some of th stories that came before. Much like A Visit From the Goon Squad, I got a sense of the tragic nature of aging--what is lost, what is forgotten, and what changes. The book is tender in parts, sad in others. It's the kind of book that makes you think about your own relationships--about what is left unsaid, about opportunities missed. It was a joy to read.
February 27, 2022
Jennifer Haigh is a favorite of mine, and I've thoroughly enjoyed every novel I've read. I like her complex, multi-layered characters, and I like the somewhat distant, laconic voice in which she tells her stories; there is a non-judgmental quality about it that makes me feel some empathy for even the nastiest characters. I'm not a big reader of contemporary short stories, but I was delighted to revisit Bakerton in this collection of interwoven stories. it reminded me of Maeve Binchy's The Lilac Bus first published in 1984 with its 20th century Irish characters struggling with similar themes of alcoholism, homosexuality, unwanted pregnancy, infidelity, drug use, divorce, birth control, and abortion.
May 25, 2013
Probably 2.5 stars.
Bummer. I liked Haigh's "Faith" so I was willing to pick up her other titles. This one seemed intriguing but in the end fell flat for me.
It's a series of short stories about people from the town of Bakerton, PA. A lot of the people don't live there anymore but return to the town in a variety of ways - whether that's through memories, visits, phone calls, etc. It spans several years and so we see the town itself change with the passing of time through these people. One particular character, Joyce, appears in 3 chapters (I believe) so she is the "constant" in the book. The town of Bakerton has its heyday in coal mining but as all coal mining towns seem to do it loses out. And each of the characters in the stories have memories about the town in its heyday. A couple of the earlier stories have some interesting realizations but overall the book fell flat and I was anxious to be done with it. I was bored by it and not at all captured.
Jennifer Haigh is a good author, she writes really well. This particular book just didn't do it for me. She didn't make the stories nor characters "embraceable" and when an author bores the reader that means they haven't done enough to make the reader care because frankly I just didn't care. I would turn the page to a new chapter/story and skim through to see how many pages I had of the new story and of the book. Not a great sign for a capturing story. Also how titles get picked always intrigue me. The title is not at all representative, in my opinion, of the book. One story ends with the words of the title but even then I was left scratching my head. It really makes no sense. I was thinking, hoping, that the end of the book perhaps all the stories would find their end together and it would end with a "light bulb" moment for the reader but that didn't really happen. I understand the ending but it still fell flat. Bummer.
Bummer. I liked Haigh's "Faith" so I was willing to pick up her other titles. This one seemed intriguing but in the end fell flat for me.
It's a series of short stories about people from the town of Bakerton, PA. A lot of the people don't live there anymore but return to the town in a variety of ways - whether that's through memories, visits, phone calls, etc. It spans several years and so we see the town itself change with the passing of time through these people. One particular character, Joyce, appears in 3 chapters (I believe) so she is the "constant" in the book. The town of Bakerton has its heyday in coal mining but as all coal mining towns seem to do it loses out. And each of the characters in the stories have memories about the town in its heyday. A couple of the earlier stories have some interesting realizations but overall the book fell flat and I was anxious to be done with it. I was bored by it and not at all captured.
Jennifer Haigh is a good author, she writes really well. This particular book just didn't do it for me. She didn't make the stories nor characters "embraceable" and when an author bores the reader that means they haven't done enough to make the reader care because frankly I just didn't care. I would turn the page to a new chapter/story and skim through to see how many pages I had of the new story and of the book. Not a great sign for a capturing story. Also how titles get picked always intrigue me. The title is not at all representative, in my opinion, of the book. One story ends with the words of the title but even then I was left scratching my head. It really makes no sense. I was thinking, hoping, that the end of the book perhaps all the stories would find their end together and it would end with a "light bulb" moment for the reader but that didn't really happen. I understand the ending but it still fell flat. Bummer.
January 11, 2013
I read Baker Towers a few years ago and loved it. Now with NEWS FROM HEAVEN, Jennifer Haigh has once again taken us back to the hard hit, fictional coal mining town of Bakerton, PA. with a vividly rich, yet gentle, collection of linked stories about current and past residents of this decaying, forgotten piece of real estate. Almost as if cataloging her own memories, Haigh possesses the stunning ability to communicate and interpret events and feelings experienced by her well drawn characters with such compassion, conviction and emotional honesty that readers are literally transported through the half century of ups and downs in the lives of Bakerton's inhabitants.
With emotional and rich storytelling Haigh delivers a body of stories that explore the vulnerability in the lives of many good people as they struggle to understand what the years have done not only to them but to those they love. It is book bursting with ideas about choices and their consequences, human weakness and noble sacrifice, the need to escape our circumstances and the need for family, friends and a feeling of belonging. Anyone who has lived in a small town will easily relate to the conflicting feelings of many of the characters in this cast.
I will not describe the content of the various stories and the thought provoking messages contained within each since each reader will identify with and take away something that resonates only with them. Just know that lessons abound in this book and each vignette is a small jewel to savor and enjoy.
With emotional and rich storytelling Haigh delivers a body of stories that explore the vulnerability in the lives of many good people as they struggle to understand what the years have done not only to them but to those they love. It is book bursting with ideas about choices and their consequences, human weakness and noble sacrifice, the need to escape our circumstances and the need for family, friends and a feeling of belonging. Anyone who has lived in a small town will easily relate to the conflicting feelings of many of the characters in this cast.
I will not describe the content of the various stories and the thought provoking messages contained within each since each reader will identify with and take away something that resonates only with them. Just know that lessons abound in this book and each vignette is a small jewel to savor and enjoy.
June 8, 2013
I used to think I didn't like short stories. I had the same complaints as other readers. "Too short, too abrupt, too weird." Over the last year, I've come to realize that short stories are an acquired taste, and I have a new appreciation for what can be accomplished in a smaller space, the impact of a single line or paragraph as opposed to whole chapters.
Jennifer Haigh works magic within a few pages. News From Heaven is a collection of interlinked stories about characters from the fictional coal-mining town of Bakerton, Pennsylvania. No magical realism or science fictional twists here. Just subtle, well-crafted stories about families, relationships, the connections people have with each other and with their roots. Inspired writing, and highly recommended for lovers of character-driven drama.
For a thought-provoking and thorough review with a synopsis of each story, read this one. I can't (and won't even try!) to improve upon it, other than to say I reviewed this book in all its forms: audio, e-book, and hardcover, and though the content is the same, the hardcover is especially pleasing with its pearlescent book jacket and rag-edge pages. (Only a bibliophile would understand, right?!) I ordered my own copy, and I'm looking forward to reading more by this author.
Jennifer Haigh works magic within a few pages. News From Heaven is a collection of interlinked stories about characters from the fictional coal-mining town of Bakerton, Pennsylvania. No magical realism or science fictional twists here. Just subtle, well-crafted stories about families, relationships, the connections people have with each other and with their roots. Inspired writing, and highly recommended for lovers of character-driven drama.
For a thought-provoking and thorough review with a synopsis of each story, read this one. I can't (and won't even try!) to improve upon it, other than to say I reviewed this book in all its forms: audio, e-book, and hardcover, and though the content is the same, the hardcover is especially pleasing with its pearlescent book jacket and rag-edge pages. (Only a bibliophile would understand, right?!) I ordered my own copy, and I'm looking forward to reading more by this author.
May 9, 2017
This collection of short stories was wonderful. Bakerton, a small coal town in western PA, is the link that connects the stories. The characters all have a connection to Bakerton. Many have escaped the town but have someone there that results in a rare or an occasional return. Some cannot imagine a life elsewhere. Some find out family secrets too late. As the mines close, the once middle class town declines. As the book closes, Bakerton is hanging on but whether or not it can survive is unknown.
There are ten stories in this collection. Some characters appear more than once, at different times of life. The timeframe seems to stretch from WWII through the post-war years, the 60's, the 70's, the 80's and the 90's. These stories are vignettes of small town life, where everyone knows everyone else and their stories and it is hard for outsiders to be accepted. The desire to leave and the pull to come back will be familiar to many readers who were brought up in a similar environment. And the decline of the small town will be familiar to those who has seen the struggle of a small town that loses its primary employer.
In Beast and Bird Annie Lubicki, a 16 year old from Bakerton, finds herself in NYC as a maid to a Jewish family, although she doesn't know what that means or why they have two stoves and two sets of pots and pans. It is just prior to WWII. Annie speaks her parents native language - Polish - and English. The couple she works for have a son about her age who is sickly but never says anything to her until they run into each other on the elevator and he learns she speaks English -- his parents told him she only spoke Polish. They become friends. Then Annie is let go because the husband's nephew is coming from Poland and her room is needed or because she got to close to the son.
Something Sweet takes place in 1943 and concerns high school teacher Viola Peale and her students, especially Alan Spangler. Pay careful attention to the names of the students, as some of them make later appearances, at least those who survive the war. Viola was born in Bakerton and was best friends with Edgar, one of the Baker boys. In the story, she remembers him and the last summer they spent together. Alan was loved by the girls in the class but hated by the "hoodlums" who were just doing time until they were old enough to leave school. When the school year ends, "one by one, the boys were drafted: Henry Eickmeier, Chauncey Hoeffer, Richard Dickey, Jerry Bernardi, John Quinn [and] Alan Spangler ... . Like Edgar [Baker] and Bronson [Baker], like Viola, [Alan] was a child of the century. Silently, Miss Peale blessed him, and hoped."
Broken Star tells about Regina Yahner and the family secret she learns too late. The story opens in 1974 when Regina's youngest Aunt - Melanie - and her stepdaughter come to stay for the summer. Regina's mother - the former Peg Schultheis - married late and Regina is Yahner's only child. While Melanie is there, Regina accompanies her and Peg on a journey to Pittsburgh, where Melanie sees a doctor. A week later, Melanie and her stepdaughter leave. Years pass and Regina escapes from Bakerton. Peg's parents die and Regina stops thinking about her relatives back in Bakerton. Then Melanie's stepdaughter shows up at a book signing in Atlanta and Regina learns that Melanie has dies and learns the family secret.
A Place in the Sun provides a glimpse into the life of Sandy Novak, who fled Bakerton after graduating from high school. Sandy never did make it big but was embarrassed to return to Bakerton. He did maintain some contact with his family, especially his sister Joyce, who had married the high school superintendent - Ed Hauser - who made it possible for Sandy to graduate. In what Sandy considered his one moment of grace, he wires the $1400 he had just won at the casino to his brand new niece - Rebecca Rose Hauser.
To The Stars tells the story of Sunny's return to Bakerton and provides a look at the lives of his siblings.
Thrift is the story of Agnes Lubicki, who at age 50 falls in love with a much younger man. In the story, we learn the story of the marriage of Agnes' parents and some about her sister Terri.
Favorite Son is told by an escapee from Bakerton -- Rebecca Hauser. It provides a real sense of the town's decline and the reasons for it, while telling a story about the beloved football star - Mitch Staneck - who got a full scholarship to Florida State to play football, but within a year is back in Bakertown. Rebecca figures out what happened when she is home for a visit and observes Mitch decline to read the epistle at midnight mass.
The Bottom of Things concerns another escapee from Bakerton who returns, with his second wife, for his parents fiftieth wedding anniversary. Ray, while he has succeeded in business, is disappointed in himself for many things, such as not having offered his now dead brother a job. But talks with his father and sister-in-law seem to lighten the load and provide a path for redemption.
What Remains tells the story of the last of the Bakers. Sunny Baker was raised by her aunts but seems to have been a manic depressive. Since the 1970's she has lived on the old Hoeffer farm (the one ruined by John Lubicki) and junk has piled up around the deteriorating buildings. In the late 1990's, Bakerton has managed to interest the state in building a new prison in the town, which will provide much needed jobs. But, the lead guy from the Department of Corrections insists that the trash pit that the Hoeffer farm has become must be cleaned up. After a tense town council meeting, the town's doctor goes to talk to Sunny, who hasn't been seen for at least a week.
The final story is called Desiderata. In it, Joyce Hauser is trying to go through her deceased husband's belongings.
There are ten stories in this collection. Some characters appear more than once, at different times of life. The timeframe seems to stretch from WWII through the post-war years, the 60's, the 70's, the 80's and the 90's. These stories are vignettes of small town life, where everyone knows everyone else and their stories and it is hard for outsiders to be accepted. The desire to leave and the pull to come back will be familiar to many readers who were brought up in a similar environment. And the decline of the small town will be familiar to those who has seen the struggle of a small town that loses its primary employer.
In Beast and Bird Annie Lubicki, a 16 year old from Bakerton, finds herself in NYC as a maid to a Jewish family, although she doesn't know what that means or why they have two stoves and two sets of pots and pans. It is just prior to WWII. Annie speaks her parents native language - Polish - and English. The couple she works for have a son about her age who is sickly but never says anything to her until they run into each other on the elevator and he learns she speaks English -- his parents told him she only spoke Polish. They become friends. Then Annie is let go because the husband's nephew is coming from Poland and her room is needed or because she got to close to the son.
Something Sweet takes place in 1943 and concerns high school teacher Viola Peale and her students, especially Alan Spangler. Pay careful attention to the names of the students, as some of them make later appearances, at least those who survive the war. Viola was born in Bakerton and was best friends with Edgar, one of the Baker boys. In the story, she remembers him and the last summer they spent together. Alan was loved by the girls in the class but hated by the "hoodlums" who were just doing time until they were old enough to leave school. When the school year ends, "one by one, the boys were drafted: Henry Eickmeier, Chauncey Hoeffer, Richard Dickey, Jerry Bernardi, John Quinn [and] Alan Spangler ... . Like Edgar [Baker] and Bronson [Baker], like Viola, [Alan] was a child of the century. Silently, Miss Peale blessed him, and hoped."
Broken Star tells about Regina Yahner and the family secret she learns too late. The story opens in 1974 when Regina's youngest Aunt - Melanie - and her stepdaughter come to stay for the summer. Regina's mother - the former Peg Schultheis - married late and Regina is Yahner's only child. While Melanie is there, Regina accompanies her and Peg on a journey to Pittsburgh, where Melanie sees a doctor. A week later, Melanie and her stepdaughter leave. Years pass and Regina escapes from Bakerton. Peg's parents die and Regina stops thinking about her relatives back in Bakerton. Then Melanie's stepdaughter shows up at a book signing in Atlanta and Regina learns that Melanie has dies and learns the family secret.
A Place in the Sun provides a glimpse into the life of Sandy Novak, who fled Bakerton after graduating from high school. Sandy never did make it big but was embarrassed to return to Bakerton. He did maintain some contact with his family, especially his sister Joyce, who had married the high school superintendent - Ed Hauser - who made it possible for Sandy to graduate. In what Sandy considered his one moment of grace, he wires the $1400 he had just won at the casino to his brand new niece - Rebecca Rose Hauser.
To The Stars tells the story of Sunny's return to Bakerton and provides a look at the lives of his siblings.
Thrift is the story of Agnes Lubicki, who at age 50 falls in love with a much younger man. In the story, we learn the story of the marriage of Agnes' parents and some about her sister Terri.
Favorite Son is told by an escapee from Bakerton -- Rebecca Hauser. It provides a real sense of the town's decline and the reasons for it, while telling a story about the beloved football star - Mitch Staneck - who got a full scholarship to Florida State to play football, but within a year is back in Bakertown. Rebecca figures out what happened when she is home for a visit and observes Mitch decline to read the epistle at midnight mass.
The Bottom of Things concerns another escapee from Bakerton who returns, with his second wife, for his parents fiftieth wedding anniversary. Ray, while he has succeeded in business, is disappointed in himself for many things, such as not having offered his now dead brother a job. But talks with his father and sister-in-law seem to lighten the load and provide a path for redemption.
What Remains tells the story of the last of the Bakers. Sunny Baker was raised by her aunts but seems to have been a manic depressive. Since the 1970's she has lived on the old Hoeffer farm (the one ruined by John Lubicki) and junk has piled up around the deteriorating buildings. In the late 1990's, Bakerton has managed to interest the state in building a new prison in the town, which will provide much needed jobs. But, the lead guy from the Department of Corrections insists that the trash pit that the Hoeffer farm has become must be cleaned up. After a tense town council meeting, the town's doctor goes to talk to Sunny, who hasn't been seen for at least a week.
The final story is called Desiderata. In it, Joyce Hauser is trying to go through her deceased husband's belongings.
December 23, 2014
***3.5 Stars***
May 8, 2013
Jennifer Haigh's first short story collection, News From Heaven, traces the slow decay of the fictional Pennsylvania coal-mining town of Bakerston, through 10 linked stories. Introduced to readers in her fine 2005 novel, Baker Towers, Bakerston was a typical mining town. In its heyday in the middle of the 20th Century, the Baker Brothers mines employed virtually every able-bodied male in the town and even built the workers’ cookie-cutter homes. The workers made good wages and the town grew into a tight-knit community where everybody knew everybody else’s business. Or so they thought.
When an explosion toppled one of the mines and killed a number of the miners, the dramatic climax of Baker Towers, it rocked the town forever. By the time the 21st Century dawned the company had extracted every bit of coal it could and it closed the mines. Workers went on unemployment or moved South for new jobs, while some suffered worse fates, their lungs scarred by decades in the mines.
While on one level the stories present a microcosm of the nation’s economic woes, their true power lies in the exploration of the inner lives of the families–bound by their daily struggles and the yearning for a better life. Haigh’s characters are a diverse lot, from the disturbed heir to the Baker fortune, living in squalor, to the restless son of the Novak clan, who leaves Bakerston far behind but can never quite escape its grip.
Haigh brings these characters alive with a perceptiveness and eloquence. While the characters know intimate details about their fellow townspeople, there are long-held secrets, hidden mostly out of love. In “Beast and Bird,” the opening story, a Bakerston family sends its young Polish teen-ager to work as a live-in maid for a wealthy Jewish family in New York City, where everything is unfamiliar and nothing makes sense to her. “A Place in the Sun” and its twin story, “To the Stars,” focus on Sandy, the youngest of the Novak clan, who struggles to find a new life on the West Coast, but cannot outrun his demons.
There are tender moments as well. In “Thrift,” 50-year-old Agnes Lubicki, destined to be an aging spinster, unexpectedly finds love with a much younger man. In “The Bottom of Things,” Ray Wojick returns home from Houston as a successful businessman to attend his parents’ 50th anniversary, triggering memories of his troubled brother’s death and his guilt over whether he could have prevented it.
Haigh is the author of four critically-acclaimed novels. In addition to Baker Towers, her works include Mrs. Kimble, The Condition,and Faith.
When an explosion toppled one of the mines and killed a number of the miners, the dramatic climax of Baker Towers, it rocked the town forever. By the time the 21st Century dawned the company had extracted every bit of coal it could and it closed the mines. Workers went on unemployment or moved South for new jobs, while some suffered worse fates, their lungs scarred by decades in the mines.
While on one level the stories present a microcosm of the nation’s economic woes, their true power lies in the exploration of the inner lives of the families–bound by their daily struggles and the yearning for a better life. Haigh’s characters are a diverse lot, from the disturbed heir to the Baker fortune, living in squalor, to the restless son of the Novak clan, who leaves Bakerston far behind but can never quite escape its grip.
Haigh brings these characters alive with a perceptiveness and eloquence. While the characters know intimate details about their fellow townspeople, there are long-held secrets, hidden mostly out of love. In “Beast and Bird,” the opening story, a Bakerston family sends its young Polish teen-ager to work as a live-in maid for a wealthy Jewish family in New York City, where everything is unfamiliar and nothing makes sense to her. “A Place in the Sun” and its twin story, “To the Stars,” focus on Sandy, the youngest of the Novak clan, who struggles to find a new life on the West Coast, but cannot outrun his demons.
There are tender moments as well. In “Thrift,” 50-year-old Agnes Lubicki, destined to be an aging spinster, unexpectedly finds love with a much younger man. In “The Bottom of Things,” Ray Wojick returns home from Houston as a successful businessman to attend his parents’ 50th anniversary, triggering memories of his troubled brother’s death and his guilt over whether he could have prevented it.
Haigh is the author of four critically-acclaimed novels. In addition to Baker Towers, her works include Mrs. Kimble, The Condition,and Faith.
January 25, 2013
When I found out that I'd won a free copy of this book from the Goodreads First Reads program, I was obviously excited. Then when I figured out it was the second book this author has written about Bakerton, Pennsylvania, I was afraid I'd be totally lost, since I've never read the first one. It turned out there was no cause for alarm, as the short stories in this book stand completely on their own. (I still do want to read the first book, Baker Towers, but only because I like the author's writing style and the characters she has created here.)
The stories in this book are very good. In her writing style, Jennifer Haigh reminded me of Alice Munro, which is high praise coming from me, as Munro is one of my favorite short story writers. Both of them are able to give you a sense of a person's whole life in just a few pages by sketching a few well-chosen details and letting you fill in the rest. In subject matter, this book reminded me more of A Gravestone Made of Wheat by Will Weaver. Although Weaver writes about small agricultural towns in Minnesota and this book is set in a mining town in Pennsylvania, there's the same feeling of having two choices-- striking out on your own in the big outside world or living a small and unfulfilling life where you grew up. Haigh captures that dichotomy very well.
The stories in this book are very good. In her writing style, Jennifer Haigh reminded me of Alice Munro, which is high praise coming from me, as Munro is one of my favorite short story writers. Both of them are able to give you a sense of a person's whole life in just a few pages by sketching a few well-chosen details and letting you fill in the rest. In subject matter, this book reminded me more of A Gravestone Made of Wheat by Will Weaver. Although Weaver writes about small agricultural towns in Minnesota and this book is set in a mining town in Pennsylvania, there's the same feeling of having two choices-- striking out on your own in the big outside world or living a small and unfulfilling life where you grew up. Haigh captures that dichotomy very well.
March 11, 2013
Author Jennifer Haigh picks up the threads of her previous work, "Baker Towers", and weaves those threads into a tapestry of short stories called "News from Heaven: The Bakerton Stories". Both books are set in the small-town coal-mining community of Bakerton, PA. The story line and setting of these books really resonate with me. I too live in a small community where one main employer dominates employment demographics and affects the lives of generation after generation of area residents. In my case, the employer is a paper mill in a VA county with a decreasing population. While the stories in "News from Heaven" are interconnected, they cover a span of time frames. Some people who leave small towns never return, and some people never leave. Those who fall somewhere in-between are often trapped in a torturous mix of guilt and wanderlust, bound by family commitments which sometimes include keeping deep secrets. Jennifer Haigh is a skilled storyteller whose work is both subtle and strongly-felt. Recommended: first read "Baker Towers", and then read "News from Heaven". You will appreciate the author's care in creating the lives of her characters and her finesse in telling their tales.
Review Copy Gratis Amazon Vine
Review Copy Gratis Amazon Vine
December 2, 2012
Usually I don't go for short stories, but it was Jennifer Haigh, so I said yes, I want that one. She didn't disappoint. Each is a little snippet, with pieces coming together here and there - Different periods of time but all have ONE thing in common. Bakerton - Now this is my first book by Haigh, but I have heard and read so many good things about her so I thought this would be a good place to start.
Do you think I should have read The Baker Towers first? Sometimes I wonder, I just felt a piece missing somewhere to the puzzle that I couldn't find. Don't get me wrong they are all enjoyable. I felt for the most part as if when each part ended, sometimes sooner than I would have liked, they linked together nicely, but I still feel as if something is missing.
Tradition and family are a big theme in this book. Small towns are very interesting and Bakerton is no different. I think my favorite is Joyce. She is just a rock, even with everyone around her clinging for life.
This book would be a good one to read on a rainy day, short and makes time pass quickly, you will want to greedy eat up each chapter to find out what happened to the person from the previous one! Enjoy!
Do you think I should have read The Baker Towers first? Sometimes I wonder, I just felt a piece missing somewhere to the puzzle that I couldn't find. Don't get me wrong they are all enjoyable. I felt for the most part as if when each part ended, sometimes sooner than I would have liked, they linked together nicely, but I still feel as if something is missing.
Tradition and family are a big theme in this book. Small towns are very interesting and Bakerton is no different. I think my favorite is Joyce. She is just a rock, even with everyone around her clinging for life.
This book would be a good one to read on a rainy day, short and makes time pass quickly, you will want to greedy eat up each chapter to find out what happened to the person from the previous one! Enjoy!
February 7, 2013
News From Heaven by Jennifer Haigh is a collection of interconnected short stories about Bakerton, Pa., and while the characters in these stories all have roots in that former coal-mining town, the town itself is a character — matter of fact, it is the character — that holds these stories together. Haigh has created a heartbreaking and hopeful story about the death and rebirth of a town and its people. As the founding members, the Bakers, brought glory and industry to the town that ensured its prosperity, they also have a hand in its decline.
From WWI to the 1970s and 1990s, Haigh chronicles the rise and fall of a town tied closely to its founding family and the coal beneath its hills. By the end, readers will be as connected to Bakerton as they are to their own hometowns and families. From the coal hacked out of the mines to the black lungs carried by its resident miners, there is a deep sense of place and the people who inhabit it are as flawed and as memorable as the school teachers, mechanics, small business owners, and others of memory.
Read the full review: http://savvyverseandwit.com/2013/02/n...
From WWI to the 1970s and 1990s, Haigh chronicles the rise and fall of a town tied closely to its founding family and the coal beneath its hills. By the end, readers will be as connected to Bakerton as they are to their own hometowns and families. From the coal hacked out of the mines to the black lungs carried by its resident miners, there is a deep sense of place and the people who inhabit it are as flawed and as memorable as the school teachers, mechanics, small business owners, and others of memory.
Read the full review: http://savvyverseandwit.com/2013/02/n...
February 1, 2013
I don't generally read short story collections, but I loved Faith (her last novel) that I was willing to give this a chance---and I am so glad I did.
While this could technically be considered a sequel to Baker Towers, you don't need to have read that to enjoy this. (Although as a warning, I hadn't read that book and after reading this, I bought it because I want to spend more time with these people in this world.)
Which is interesting, really, because these are mostly not happy stories. Bakerton is the kind of town that everyone wants to escape, but few people actually manage to get away. It's a small town with few opportunities and those opportunities are dwindling even more as the mines (which employ many of the residents) start to die off.
Many of the stories are interconnected and so some of the characters pop up in several different stories (and each cameo was like randomly running into a friend).
Highly recommended, even if you don't think you like short stories. Jennifer Haigh will prove you wrong.
While this could technically be considered a sequel to Baker Towers, you don't need to have read that to enjoy this. (Although as a warning, I hadn't read that book and after reading this, I bought it because I want to spend more time with these people in this world.)
Which is interesting, really, because these are mostly not happy stories. Bakerton is the kind of town that everyone wants to escape, but few people actually manage to get away. It's a small town with few opportunities and those opportunities are dwindling even more as the mines (which employ many of the residents) start to die off.
Many of the stories are interconnected and so some of the characters pop up in several different stories (and each cameo was like randomly running into a friend).
Highly recommended, even if you don't think you like short stories. Jennifer Haigh will prove you wrong.
March 28, 2013
So good that as soon as I finished the book, I wanted to read these again from the beginning. All the stories connect to a small town in western Pennsylvania. The town used to be about farming, then coal mining, and now its best economic prospect is having a prison built there.
The stories cover different time periods. They cover the people who tried to leave and the people who were content (or not) to stay. My favorite story is the first one, about a small-town girl who goes to New York in the 1930s to be a maid. Beautiful writing. I'd buy this one.
The stories cover different time periods. They cover the people who tried to leave and the people who were content (or not) to stay. My favorite story is the first one, about a small-town girl who goes to New York in the 1930s to be a maid. Beautiful writing. I'd buy this one.
May 2, 2013
I had enjoyed Haigh's previous novel, "Faith", so I thought I'd pick up her collection of short stories. BOTNS has declared this the "year of short stories" and I've been reading along with some of their recommendations. This collection felt more like a novel, similar to Egan's "A Visit From the Goon Squad." Separate stories but overlapping characters and a common setting, Bakerton, Pennsylvania. I have not read her 2005 novel, "Baker Towers" which is set in the same small coal town in Pennsylvania. I'll have to add this one to my reading list. Definitely recommended.
July 15, 2013
Jennifer Haigh writes with exquisite simple prose of the life and times of everyday people in the fictitious town of Bakerston, a coal mining town in Pennsylvania. Interwoven short stories resonate with such depth of reality, and feeling that I'm blown away. This book, is a keeper. I'm anxious now to read all of her books. If any of the other books are as good as this, she will be a favourite of mine (although I think she is already!).
October 15, 2012
I love Jennifer Haigh's writing: it's beautiful, introspective, and moving. She writes the sort of books that make me pause between chapters, going over what I've read. Her collection of short stories, which takes readers back to the town in "Baker Towers", is an amazing, instantly addictive read that I both did and didn't want to finish, the perfect book!
April 21, 2013
This is a collection of interrelated stories. The setting is Bakerton, Pennsylvania. The residents are primarily coal miners, but not all. We get a good feel for the make up of the citizens based on stories that take place in past and present. The stories are developed fully so you really get the total arc of a character.
April 24, 2013
There is something about gritty, industrial America that appeals to me, particularly in fiction that looks at it when it began to change. While this is a collection of short stories, it is more like sifting through a box of pictures, seeing the snap shot of a moment that changed nothing, or maybe it changed everything.
July 17, 2016
I did myself a disservice by listening to this on audio. I've learned now that I can absorb a short story better when it's in print. This is a pretty good follow up to Baker Towers, I would not recommend reading this without reading that book first. Haigh really does a beautiful job of painting the minutia of small town life, and how to define yourself inside and outside of it.
May 5, 2013
Jennifer Haigh has a way of weaving together a story that suggests intricacy and community; many of her stories felt like they should continue beyond their end - each could be the first chapter of its own novel instead of a series of stories set in the same town.
April 29, 2019
News from Heaven is a collection of 9 short stories organized around the history of a coal mining town in Pennsylvania. The stories can stand on their own as independent stories but also have enough of the unifying theme about life in Bakerton, the book’s imaginary setting, to tie them together. It’s a good book.
Even though the book is a collection of stories, I feel like the best way to read the book is to read it as if it were a novel, starting one story right after finishing the one before.
The greatest strengths of the book are that the stories do an excellent job of character development, unusual in short stories. Each character is carefully drawn and realistic. In fact, realism is the second strength of these stories. While the book is fictional, the characters are so nuanced and the setting and situations so real that the book feels a lot more like non-fiction or history than it does a work of fiction.
Contributing to these strengths is that the characters are so diverse, unique individuals with personalities and lifestyles very different from one another. Again, this serves to make the stories very realistic.
While I liked all of the stories in this volume, I particularly liked the last, “Desiderata,” because I felt that the ending of the story was so beautifully told through implication and that Joyce, the main character, handled the situation in the way only a more mature and wise person could. Author Jennifer Haigh creates characters that are not only believable and real, but that she seems to have built on real life experiences and her own perceptive insight into not only the fictional character but into everyday real life as well.
Even though the book is a collection of stories, I feel like the best way to read the book is to read it as if it were a novel, starting one story right after finishing the one before.
The greatest strengths of the book are that the stories do an excellent job of character development, unusual in short stories. Each character is carefully drawn and realistic. In fact, realism is the second strength of these stories. While the book is fictional, the characters are so nuanced and the setting and situations so real that the book feels a lot more like non-fiction or history than it does a work of fiction.
Contributing to these strengths is that the characters are so diverse, unique individuals with personalities and lifestyles very different from one another. Again, this serves to make the stories very realistic.
While I liked all of the stories in this volume, I particularly liked the last, “Desiderata,” because I felt that the ending of the story was so beautifully told through implication and that Joyce, the main character, handled the situation in the way only a more mature and wise person could. Author Jennifer Haigh creates characters that are not only believable and real, but that she seems to have built on real life experiences and her own perceptive insight into not only the fictional character but into everyday real life as well.
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