Baker Towers

E-Book Extras: ONE: An Interview with Jennifer Haigh; TWO: Reading Group Guide. A stunning follow-up to her bestselling debut, *Mrs. Kimble*, Jennifer Haigh returns with *Baker Towers*, a compelling story of love and loss in a western Pennsylvania mining town in the 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, G