COAL COUNTY REVISED

Name: COAL COUNTY REVISED
Author: Mark Itkonen
ISBN: 978-1495968310

by Mark Itkonen ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 24, 2014

A sometimes-vivid but ultimately forgettable glimpse into the coal-mining industry and the men and women who work in it, due...

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This gritty debut novel, set in the fictitious southern Appalachian town of Coalton, chronicles the mundanities and political machinations of life in a coal-mining community.

Itkonen’s storyline doesn’t follow any one particular character as much as it does the unfolding events in a small town and its surroundings. The diverse cast features a wide range of people, including train-riding hoboes looking for work in the mines, a morally bankrupt coal-company CEO who will do anything to make his mines productive, and his disgruntled employees plotting revenge. Larry Miller, the head of the International Coal Company, Inc., is arguably the most fully realized and intriguing character in the book, as much of the plot revolves around his unethical actions to make his company more profitable. They include creating false documents to steal land from a beloved local businessman, gaining permit approvals from an Army Corps of Engineers regional director by using illegal drugs, and placing a spy in his own mines to ferret out pro-union workers. However, the overall story becomes a bit contrived when a group of Russian gangsters infiltrates the town, with a plan to kidnap and ransom one or both of Miller’s daughters. Indeed, the lack of a clear, identifiable plot thread throughout markedly muddles the narrative momentum and, with so many two-dimensional characters, it makes the novel a difficult one to get into. The novel is well-written and vividly imagined, with some passages that immerse readers in the story: “Most mornings brought fresh air to Coalton, as cool and clean mountain air descended from the weathered peaks that encircled the town, flushing the stale and dusty atmosphere downhill to Virginia.” However, its lack of sympathetic main characters ends up making it a strangely detached, emotionally flat reading experience. In the end, the rich backdrop of the rural coal town—with its abject poverty, black market moonshine, brothels and Pentecostal churches—is more memorable than the cast of characters that inhabit it.

A sometimes-vivid but ultimately forgettable glimpse into the coal-mining industry and the men and women who work in it, due to superficial characterization.

Pub Date: Nov. 24, 2014

ISBN: 978-1495968310

Page Count: 458

Publisher: CreateSpace

Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2015

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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MAGIC HOUR

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.

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Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.

Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.

Pub Date: March 1, 2006

ISBN: 0-345-46752-3

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

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A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.

"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.