Baker Towers [Hardcover]

The second novel by the author of the award-winning Mrs. Kimble depicts life in a postwar Pennsylvania mining town and continues Haigh's exploration of the hardships of women's lives. In the town of Bakerton, dominated by the towers of the title (made of slowly combusting piles of scrap coal), poor families live in ethnic enclaves of company houses. Italian Rose Novak broke with tradition by marrying a Polish man, but he dies in the book's first chapter, and Rose and her five children struggle through the years that follow. The oldest son, Georgie, returns from WWII and avoids the mining life by marrying the posh, cynical daughter of a wealthy Philadelphia store owner. Rose's daughter Dorothy gets a wartime job in glamorous Washington but breaks down and returns to Bakerton, while capable daughter Joyce, who joins the military just as the war ends, comes home to take care of her ailing mother, resenting Georgie and Sandy, the handsome youngest brother, who escape town. Only Rose and Lucy, the awkward youngest daughter, are content with things as they are. The story climaxes with a disaster at the mine, which affects each of the Novak children. Haigh's prose never soars, but she writes convincingly of family and smalltown relations, as well as of the intractable frustrations of American poverty.
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Adult/High School–The eponymous towers of the title are the still-smoldering slag heaps from the coal mines of Bakerton, PA. That the town was named after the mines rather than the other way around sets them firmly at the center of the lives of the inhabitants. The novel focuses on five siblings following the death of their father in 1944, and progresses through the late '60s. Of Italian and Polish extraction, they all have Bakerton firmly rooted in their psyches even as they attempt to move away. Georgie leaves the army and marries, uncomfortably, into Philadelphia society, Dorothy attempts to fit into wartime D.C., and Joyce goes into the military too late for wartime responsibility. Meanwhile, spoiled and handsome Sandy moves away to find his fortune and comes back to hide from some shady associates, and baby Lucy finishes college yet follows her heart back to Bakerton. Each time frame is clearly limned, from the Washington of white gloves and fake silk stockings to the falling away of old loyalties and habits in the '60s. Eventually, the mines close with a frightening cave-in, but not before readers have become achingly aware of the lives of the citizens of the town. Teens will identify with the need to escape from one's origins, but they may also realize how unlikely real escape is. There is as much to admire in the lives of the townspeople as there is to escape. The place and times of the towers are vividly drawn, and young adults may see the universality in their specifics.–Susan H. Woodcock, Fairfax County Public Library, VA
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*Starred Review* Haigh's second novel, following the glowing Mrs. Kimble (2003), is set in Bakerton, a mining town in post-World World II Pennsylvania. Haigh's focus is the Novak family, particularly the five children being raised by their Italian mother after their Polish father drops dead. All five make attempts to escape Bakerton at one point or another; some are successful, others are not. George, a veteran of WW II, neglects his Bakerton fiancee and marries a cold socialite. Dorothy goes to the nation's capital to work, but a nervous breakdown brings her home. Brilliant, cold Joyce thinks her future lies with the military, but she is sorely disappointed. Sandy is the golden son who escapes to dubious success. And Lucy is the youngest, who finds herself in college despite the nagging feeling that she never wanted to leave home in the first place. Haigh creates a real sense of a community and brings her mining town to life through a large cast of minor characters who pass in and out of the Novaks' lives. The mines that the town is built upon cannot be forgotten either, even as their time comes, disastrously, to pass. Baker Towers^B is a novel possessing a rare, quiet power to evoke a time long past and the character of the people who lived then. Kristine Huntley
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“The living, breathing organism that is Haigh’s captivating book… [is an] effortlessly haunting story… [Haigh is] an expert natural storyteller.” (New York Times )

“Jennifer Haigh’s ambitious, elegiac second novel, Baker Towers [is]… a rich portrait of place.” (Washington Post Book World )

“An elegant, elegiac multigenerational saga. . . . Almost mythic in its ambition, somewhere between Oates and Updike country, and thoroughly satisfying.” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review )

“[Haigh] writes convincingly of family and small town relations, as well as of the intractable frustrations of American poverty.” (Publishers Weekly )

“Jennifer Haigh stakes a claim for a major breakout.” (Publishers Weekly )

“In clean, authoritative prose, Haigh uncannily injects new life into an era too often entombed by nostalgia.” (Entertainment Weekly )

“A good old-fashioned read... the author deftly evokes the particulars of a time and place.” (Daily News )

“Terrific.” (Harlan Coben, The Birmingham News )

“Haigh’s writing is rich and mellifluous, and her story certainly has an old-fashioned charm and dignity to it.” (The Times (London) )

“A work that is quickly boosting [Haigh’s] ascension to the vanguard of 21st century American novelists.” (Patriot Ledger (Quincy, MA) )

A stunning follow-up to her bestselling debut,Mrs. Kimble, Jennifer Haigh returns withBaker Towers, a compelling story of love and lossin a western Pennsylvania mining town inthe years after World War II

Bakerton is a company town built on coal, a town of church festivals and ethnic neighborhoods, hunters' breakfasts and firemen's parades. Its children are raised in company houses -- three rooms upstairs, three rooms downstairs. Its ball club leads the coal company league. The twelve Baker mines offer good union jobs, and the looming black piles of mine dirt don't bother anyone. Called Baker Towers, they are local landmarks, clear evidence that the mines are booming. Baker Towers mean good wages and meat on the table, two weeks' paid vacation and presents under the Christmas tree.

The mines were not named for Bakerton; Bakerton was named for the mines. This is an important distinction. It explains the order of things.

Born and raised on Bakerton's Polish Hill, the five Novak children come of age during wartime, a thrilling era when the world seems on the verge of changing forever. The oldest, Georgie, serves on a minesweeper in the South Pacific and glimpses life beyond Bakerton, a promising future he is determined to secure at all costs. His sister Dorothy, a fragile beauty, takes a job in Washington, D.C., and finds she is unprepared for city life. Brilliant Joyce longs to devote herself to something of consequence but instead becomes the family's keystone, bitterly aware of the opportunities she might have had elsewhere. Sandy sails through life on looks and charm, and Lucy, the volatile baby, devours the family's attention and develops a bottomless appetite for love.

Baker Towers is a family saga and a love story, a hymn to a time and place long gone, to America's industrial past and the men and women we now call the Greatest Generation. This is a feat of imagination from an extraordinary new voice in American fiction, a writer of enormous power and skill.

Jennifer Haigh is the author of the critically acclaimed Mrs. Kimble, which won the PEN/Hemingway Award for outstanding first fiction. Born and raised in Barnesboro, Pennsylvania, she is a graduate of Dickinson College and the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Her short stories have appeared in Good Housekeeping, the Hartford Courant, Alaska Quarterly Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, and elsewhere. She lives on Boston's South Shore.

Combine an involving family saga with a skilled narrator and you have a winner. Anna Fields reads this story about the people of a Pennsylvania mining town with clarity, warmth, and sympathy. As the five Novak children come of age during WWII, they experience all the possibilities of a new era, as well as the opportunities and limitations of their background and class. Fields gives believable voice to everyone from Polish grandmothers to bored East Coast debutantes and helps us care about the infuriating characters as well as the sympathetic ones. You'll stay glued to your earphones. A.C.S. © AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.