Evening Reader Book Club
April 2015
Baker Towers
by Jennifer Haigh
Baker Towers is a family saga and a love story, a memory of a time and place now gone. Book club members said the reading the book was like eating comfort food. Although there was sadness and tragedy readers were sustained by the way in which families took care of each other and lived their lives. They loved how the characters came together for each other in the end. They were impressed with the authentic portrayal of characters and their lives, the vivid descriptions of a rural company coal town in Western Pennsylvania and life for young women in Washington DC during WWII and right after. Author Jennifer Haigh creates a real sense of a community and brings the mining town to life through a large cast of minor characters who pass in and out of the Novak’s’ lives.
Everyone agreed that the story was written with great compassion for the people who lived and died in the town. There were many emotional moments when readers spoke about particular events and characters that moved them. They recounted personal stories about their own family history as a result of the truths recounted in the story of Bakerton. It was if they were remembering real people and their reactions to them. This led into several serious discussions about the dynamics of family life and ethnic assimilation of Poles and Italians, whose families permeated the story with distinctive ethnic characteristics, working together but living in separate neighborhoods.
The main theme was the need to escape from the town and the miner’s life, but real escape eluded most. Returning home awaited most of the Novaks, along with those who never left. The second-generation children embraced the home of their parents and willingly built a comfortable life there. Others said that they were waiting for a big event but it never came. Some said the event was WWII and the collapse of the Baker Mine and subsequent demise of the coal industry along with Bakerton. Readers also discussed restoration and renewal, family secrets and conflict, personal growth and how choices affect the paths we take in our lives.
Readers remarked that the book was choppy and the switching back and forth led to readers losing their place and having to start over. Others said that this was how the families lived. Everyone enjoyed reading the book and was very enthusiastic when discussing it. Some said it reminded them the Doll Maker by Harriett Arnow, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith and At the Water’s Edge by Sara Gruen. Readers were caught up in the history of World War I and II and recommended the Ken Follett trilogy covering WWI through WWII; Fall of the Giants, Winter of the World, and Edge of Eternity.
Readers are looking forward to discovering more elaboration about the Novak siblings in the author’s current book of short stories about Bakerton, News from Heaven.
Have you read Baker Towers or other books by Jennifer Haigh? Please share your thoughts in the comments! You don't have to be part of the face-to-face book club to comment, and you may comment anonymously if you would like to.
