{"product_id":"news-from-heaven-the-bakerton-stories-isbn-9780060889647","title":"News from Heaven: The Bakerton Stories","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn \u003cem\u003eNews from Heaven\u003c\/em\u003e, Jennifer Haigh—bestselling author of \u003cem\u003eFaith\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eThe Condition\u003c\/em\u003e—returns to the territory of her acclaimed novel \u003cem\u003eBaker Towers \u003c\/em\u003ewith a collection of short stories set in and around the fictionalized coal-mining town of Bakerton, Pennsylvania.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eExploring themes of restlessness, regret, redemption and acceptance, Jennifer Haigh depicts men and women of different generations shaped by dreams and haunted by disappointments. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJanet Maslin of the \u003cem\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/em\u003e has called Haigh's Bakerton stories \"utterly, entrancingly alive on the page,\" comparable to Richard Russo's \u003cem\u003eEmpire Falls\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e | \u003cp\u003eThe bestselling author of \u003cem\u003eFaith\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eThe Condition\u003c\/em\u003e returns with a collection of unforgettable short stories inspired by a Pennsylvania coal-mining town and the people who call it home.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhen her iconic novel \u003cem\u003eBaker Towers\u003c\/em\u003e was published in 2005, it was hailed as a modern classic—\"compassionate and powerful . . . a song of praise for a too-little-praised part of America, for the working families whose toils and constancy have done so much to make the country great\" (\u003cem\u003eChicago Tribune\u003c\/em\u003e). Its young author, Jennifer Haigh, was \"an expert natural storyteller with an acute sense of her characters' humanity\" (\u003cem\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/em\u003e). \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNow, in this collection of interconnected short stories, Jennifer Haigh returns to the vividly imagined world of Bakerton, Pennsylvania, a coal-mining town rocked by decades of painful transition. From its heyday during two world wars through its slow decline, Bakerton is a town that refuses to give up gracefully, binding—sometimes cruelly—succeeding generations to the place that made them. A young woman glimpses a world both strange and familiar when she becomes a live-in maid for a Jewish family in New York City. A long-absent brother makes a sudden and tragic homecoming. A solitary middle-aged woman tastes unexpected love when a young man returns to town. With a revolving cast of characters—many familiar to fans of \u003cem\u003eBaker Towers\u003c\/em\u003e—these stories explore how our roots, the families and places in which we are raised, shape the people we eventually become. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eNews from Heaven\u003c\/em\u003e looks unflinchingly at the conflicting human desires for escape and for connection, and explores the enduring hold of home.\u003c\/p\u003e | \u003cp\u003e“. . . a book with an arresting emotional power greater than the sum of its parts. . . each story in News from Heaven is astounding. . . .” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eKansas City Star\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Beautifully written and deeply moving. . . This is a masterly collection. . . .” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eLibrary Journal (starred review)\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Fans of Elizabeth Strout’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “Olive Kitteridge” will succumb to the lure of Jennifer Haigh’s latest book, News from Heaven. Haigh’s latest book, like Strout’s, is a series of interconnected stories that come together and tap into a wide range of human emotions.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eChicago Tribune\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Haigh has a fine eye for how time works on characters’ theories about themselves…. Life may punish these characters, but the writing itself always accords them due respect. Readers of Haigh’s most recent novel, \u003ci\u003eFaith\u003c\/i\u003e, about a priest accused of abusing a child, will recognize this rare degree of writerly fair-mindedness…. Haigh, whose first book won the PEN\/Hemingway Award, has a sure grip on her characters and a belief in place as a determining factor in the shapes of our lives.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eNew York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Haigh has a fine eye for how time works on characters’ theories about themselves…. Haigh, whose first book won the PEN\/Hemingway Award, has a sure grip on her characters and a belief in place as a determining factor in the shapes of our lives.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eNew York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Jennifer Haigh’s stories rove across time and cultures as easily as they render the tendernesses and longings and hardscrabble deprivations of home. NEWS FROM HEAVEN is well-named, given that its unsentimental compassion and observational acuity. . . is just what we need right now.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eJim Shepard, author of Like You'd Understand, Anyway\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“This collection of short stories shows depth, understanding and compassion. . . . Haigh’s narratives are beautifully realized stories of heartbreak, of qualified love, and of economic as well as personal depression.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews (starred review)\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Outstanding… \u003ci\u003eNews From Heaven\u003c\/i\u003e fits quite comfortably in the company of the hybrid novel-in-stories made so popular by predecessors such as Jhumpa Lahiri…and Elizabeth Strout…For Haigh, this small town is a large canvas, one filled in with precise, poignant strokes.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eWashington Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“A vibrant, thought-provoking, profoundly readable contribution to the genre. . . . Each of these ten linked stories represents a distinct, shining example of Haigh’s remarkable gifts for lyricism, psychological insight, and stealth humor.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eBoston Globe\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Haigh skillfully explores a community and their conflicting sentiments of family and responsibility against desires for a future beyond the narrow scope of their hometown.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“The characters in Jennifer Haigh’s NEWS FROM HEAVEN are so vividly drawn, the inner lives revealed so deftly, with such intelligence and sympathy, that fictional Bakerton, Pennsylvania, takes on the additional weight of, say, Winesburg, Ohio.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eRichard Russo, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Empire Falls\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Jennifer Haigh has accomplished what James Joyce did in Dubliners and Sherwood Anderson in Winesburg, Ohio: render a place with such exactitude the landscape, character, and fate are inextricably linked. One of America’s finest novelists, Haigh is now one of our finest short story writers as well.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003ebestselling author Ron Rash\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“An uplifting and radiant book.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eJanet Maslin, New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Elegant stories. . . . Haigh uses well-timed plot twists to infuse them with bright new energy.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003ePeople\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“The beauty of NEWS FROM HEAVEN, Jennifer Haigh’s new collection of linked stories, has everything to do with the Pennsylvania coal town she calls Bakerton, a seedbed of ambition and heartbreak.  From the pretty, young Polish-American housekeeper whose desires flatline on Manhattan’s West Side to the widowed ex-schoolteacher who learns at last that marriage has a steep learning curve, bound to the place they recognize, willing or not, as home.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eMore magazine\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Haigh has a gift for creating believable characters of all kinds and placing them into realistic—often heartbreaking—situations. A must read for fans of \u003ci\u003eBaker Towers\u003c\/i\u003e and a good addition to all short-story collections.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Harper","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44888597627109,"sku":"NP9780060889647","price":25.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780060889647.jpg?v=1730229410","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/news-from-heaven-the-bakerton-stories-isbn-9780060889647","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}