Baker Towers Book

I wanted to give this book five stars, I really did. Ms. Haigh beautifully recreates life in a Pennsylvania coal town from the end of Word War II to the end of the Viet Nam Era. She's spot on with so many details such as being able to know who died by which family's hearse is parked in front of a house. She paints an exquisite picture of coming over a hill and having the valley open up before you with its company-built houses huddling an arms-length apart. There used to be a sulfur hill that glowed blue in the dark on "the old road to Scranton" just like the Baker Towers. The mines in NEPA where I am from were shut down like those in SEPA as a result of the change to oil. I remember January 22, 1959, when the Susquehanna River that flowed three doors from my house burst through and drowned 12 miners.

As in real life, when tragedy strikes in a mine, everyone prays to St. Ann. There is a basilica dedicated to her in Scranton and her feast day, July 26, is a major day of celebration and prayer. The Italian church had an annual commemorative parade in thanksgiving for lives saved in a mining town in Sicily, complete with dollars pinned to the Virgin's cloak (you can check the veracity of this by watching "The Sopranos" ;-).

Where I ran into difficulty was with the accuracy. Even the Western Branch of the Susquehanna River doesn't flow near Pittsburgh. Glen Echo park is on the Northwestern edge of The District of Columbia, not forty miles south. Little Polish pillows filled with potatoes are called piErogis not pirogis. St. Casimir is the patron saint of Lithuania. NOBODY but the deceased rides in a hearse during a funeral. The family rides in The First Car.

And I still haven't gotten used to the Iowa Writer's Workshop's approval of "lay" for "lie."

I'd give it a 4 2/3 or 4.75 if I had the option. I loved the book and am starting its sequel this afternoon.