I'm kinda running out of superlatives for Jennifer Haigh's ficton. I've just finished reading NEWS FROM HEAVEN (2013), her collection of intertwined, connected stories from her fictional town of Bakerton, a coal-mining town in western Pennsylvania which I first encountered in her novel, BAKER TOWERS (2005). In between these two books, I read Haigh's novel, FAITH (2011), a departure of sorts, in that it is about the scandals in the Church over clergy abuse of children. But I do have the third book of her Bakerton trilogy, HEAT AND LIGHT, standing by in my to-read pile. And I can't wait. Because Haigh has created her very own very memorable fictional territory with these Bakerton books. I mean, think Winesburg, Ohio, or Yoknapatawpha County. Because yes, Haigh's characters and her grim depictions of the coal-mining town with its company houses and company store, the cave-ins and the slow, painful deaths from black lung, as well as the gradual death of the town itself when the mines play out over the course of a few decades, are every bit as compelling and good as Anderson's Ohio town and Faulkner's Mississippi county. In fact Haigh's people and place may be even better than those old classics from the last century. The people of Bakerton and Saxon County come alive in these stories, and many them die too, as you follow the same families' rise and fall from the immigrant-filled forties up through the decades. Births, adolescence, marriages, divorces, deaths - all of it, as patterns are broken or repeated. Some stay, some escape, but these Bakerton lives will come to seem as real as your own. Enough said. If you love good fiction, these stories will catch you up. My very highest recommendation.

- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER ( )

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. ( )

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. ( )

This was a well-written book of short stories about folks who currently live or previously lived in a fictitious coal-mining town in Pennsylvania. I chose this book to read while traveling though the coal mining section of northeastern Pennsylvania. I loved the characters and the stories in this book, reading them very quickly. In several of the stories, the same characters appeared at different times in their lives. I got a pretty good glimpse into the lives of coal miners or those related to coal miners after the mines shut down.

What I'm now finding disconcerting about reading short stories is that, going back over those stories I've read, I don't seem t remember as much about them as I do when I read novels. I thought that would not be the case with this book as I liked it so much as I was reading it, but I still had difficulty recalling details of the stories later. ( )

With poignant stories spanning from the 40's to present day, all of the characters in this collection of short stories have ties to Bakerton, PA., a once-booming coal-mining town that has fallen on hard times. Each story is a snapshot of life in the residents of Bakerton, and all are told with great insight, compassion, and empathy. Although these characters first appeared in Baker's Towers, it's not necessary to read it first. I read that book years ago and remembered little.

This is not a book to devour at one sitting. I recommend reading them slowly and savoring them before moving on to the next. Each is thought-provoking and beautifully written.

Highly recommended and sure to be on my 2013 favorites list.
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