News from Heaven: The Bakerton Stories
In this collection of interlinked short stories, Haigh returns to Bakerton, Pennsylvania, and the characters she created for Baker Towers (2005). As the once prosperous mining town crumbles around the residents, family secrets are uncovered, lessons are learned, and the inhabitants seem to discover that the world around them is not the sum of the world, indeed. “Beast and Bird” finds a young woman working as a maid to a Jewish family in New York City—a very different kind of place from her family’s farm in Pennsylvania. “Something Sweet” follows a spinster teacher and her star pupil, a young man who is adored by the girls but beaten by his male classmates for being different. And in “What Remains,” the town sees the last remaining heir to the Baker Brothers coal mines suffer an ignoble death. 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 Baker Towers and a good addition to all short story collections. --Rebecca Vnuk