Sometimes I think I was born in the wrong generation. I love big band music, think chivalry should not be dead, and I desire quality over quantity. From the time I was seventeen years old up until I 'retired' to be a stay at home mom I've worked with seniors ... and loved it. I often longed for the days when there wasn't so much. I know I certainly romanticized their stories and books can do that too. Happy endings; but we all know it didn't' always turn out for the better. Lives cut short. Families broken apart. War. Greed.
Baker Towers is a look into the lives of one family and how they lived, loved, and survived one of the greatest time in history. For better or worse we are taken on a journey through time and place only to come back to where they started. My own great grandparents immigrated (came through Ellis Island) and my father grew up in a house speaking Czech and German and lived in a neighborhood 'of his kind'. I too, like the children of Baker Towers, wanted to to 'get out' of my hometown and can relate to the characters longing for something more. Grass is greener right? I really enjoyed this book and felt as if I knew each person and their struggles. I was each and every ones cheerleader. I think the back of the book gives a great introduction:
BAKER TOWERS is an intimate exploration of love and family set in a western Pennsylvania coal town in the years following World War II. Bakerton is a town of company houses and church festivals, union squabbles and firemen's parades. Its ball club leads the coal company leagues. Its neighborhoods are Little Italy, Swedetown and Polish Hill.
For the five Novak children, the forties are a decade of tragedy, excitement and stunning change. George comes home from the war determined to leave Bakerton behind and finds the task impossible. Dorothy is a fragile beauty hooked on romance. Brilliant Joyce holds the family together, bitterly aware of the life she might have had elsewhere, while her brother Sandy sails through life on looks and charm. At the center of it all is Lucy, the volatile baby, devouring the family's attention and developing a bottomless appetite for love.
BAKER TOWERS is both a family saga and a love letter to our industrial past, to the men and women known as the Greatest Generation; to the vibrant small-town life of America's Rust Belt when it was still shiny and new.
Add this to your library list ... you won't be disappointed.
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5 comments:
I saw someone holding this book yesterday and thought it looked interesting. I'm pretty sure I'd like it. I feel the same way you do about the old days.
(my post is up...)
Good review, Adrienne! Sounds like a book that I would really enjoy. I always like that era of stories as well.
My post is up. Thanks for hosting Turn the Page Tuesday for all of us readers!
That sounds like a good one, and your summation is great. I'll add it to the (super long)list!
This sounds like a great book.
When I was a kid Mom used to buy me a magizine I think it was called "Good old Day's" with old storie's in it. I loved that magizine.
I am participating, My post is up.
Thanks for sharing another good-read, Adrienne. I just posted my TTPT. I do so love this group and monthly assignment. Thanks for organizing us!
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