BENEATH THE VEIL OF SMOKE AND ASH

The hardscrabble lives of an immigrant family intersect with those of the extremely wealthy in this historical novel set in the steel mills and coal mines of Western Pennsylvania in Pasterick’s debut novel.

The author introduces her book’s main characters individually in short, third-person narratives set on a single day in May 1910. Janos and Karina Kovac are Eastern European immigrants who still struggle to survive after a decade of backbreaking work in seedy Riverton, Pennsylvania. He works at a steel mill for 12 hours each day; she was recently hired as a housekeeper by one of the mill’s managers. Karina’s willingness to provide sexual favors to Henry Archer, her bachelor employer, has made her confident that her job is secure. Unlike Janos, she’s a detached, indifferent parent to their two young children, Sofie and Lukas. A tragic accident at the mill coincides with Karina’s discovery that Henry will be leaving Riverton in a month, initiating a momentous series of events. These culminate in an unsolved murder; the abrupt disappearance of several people, including Karina; and the loss of young Lukas’ leg. The story then skips ahead seven years, and the Kovac family has moved on and achieved a measure of comfort, but a hurricane threatens this calm, and a horrific coal mining accident affects a dear friend. The novel’s structure presents many short chapters from different points of view, giving energy to the complex exposition, which addresses such topics as mental illness, infertility, rape, and postpartum depression. The larger community deals with unsafe workplaces, anti-union violence, and anti-immigrant sentiment. Two industrial accidents, both resulting from poor management and avarice, are described in chilling detail; one is in the steel mill, as “a ladle carrying a hundred tons of molten metal crashed to the ground...sending splatters of fiery liquid twenty-five feet in every direction.” The other is a coal mine collapse that kills several and traps others underground. Some narrative flourishes feel overplayed, however, as when a bereft woman banishes the color red from her house after suffering a miscarriage.

An often engaging melodrama in which characters struggle to maintain their dignity while pursuing the elusive American dream.