Storming Heaven: A Novel

by Denise Giardina

Overview

“Brilliant, diamond-hard fiction, heartwrenching, tough and tender.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review

Annadel, West Virginia, was a small town rich in coal, farms, and close-knit families, all destroyed when the coal company came in. It stole everything it hadn't bothered to buy—land deeds, private homes, and ultimately, the souls of its men and women.

Four people tell this powerful, deeply moving tale: Activist Mayor C.J. Marcum. Fierce, loveless union man Rondal Lloyd. Gutsy nurse Carrie Bishop, who loved Rondal. And lonely, Sicilian immigrant Rose Angelelli, who lost four sons to the deadly mines.

They all bear witness to nearly forgotten events of history, culminating in the final, tragic Battle of Blair Mountain—when the United States Army greeted 10,000 unemployed pro-union miners with airplanes, bombs, and poison gas. It was the first crucial battle of a war that has yet to be won.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780804102971
Publisher:	Random House Publishing Group
Publication date:	05/12/1988
Edition description:	REPRINT
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	301,443
Product dimensions:	4.18(w) x 6.75(h) x 0.78(d)

About the Author

Denise Giardina was born and raised in West Virginia. She is the author of Good King Harry, Saints and Villains, Storming Heaven, and The Unquiet Earth.

Editorial Reviews

"Brilliant diamond-hard fiction, heartwrenching, tough and tender."
—Los Angeles Times Book Review

"THIS IS THE GRIPPING STORY OF A REAL CONFLICT. . . . Denise Giardina tells the miners' stirring story with a fierceness and passion. This is a fine, moving book."
—ANNIE DILLARD

"If we are very lucky, every few years there arrives a novel that is so moving, so instantly successful . . . that it towers high over much else that is being published. Storming Heaven is that novel."
—The Cleveland Plain Dealer

"An excellent book, full of fine observations and vivid characters . . . Giardina is a gifted writer."
—Chicago Tribune

From the Publisher

Four strong, entirely different voices evoke the passion and the pain of unionizing the coal mines of Kentucky and West Virginia in the early 20th century. The canvas is broad, the action complex but even minor characters quicken to life in this memorable, beautifully written novel. The inhabitants of the hills of Appalachia see their beloved land stolen by the coal companies; forced to work in the mines, they are cheated out of their pay. Families starve, die of malaria and dysentery and slowly, almost against their will, begin the fearsome job of fighting back. In 1921, an army of 10,000 workers marches on a single town. The coal companies, the police and finally the federal government close in; hundreds are killed and the man who masterminded the attack is shot. As fast paced and compulsively readable as a thriller, this novel never overlooks the gentler pleasure of living on the land, falling in love, raising a family. Stunning sensory images sear scenes on the mind's eye. Giardina (Good King Harry has written one of those rare books that portrays a small world with impeccable clarity while telling an exciting story in vigorous, elegant prose. (June 29)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

The coal fields of West Virginia in the early 20th century are the setting for this fine historical novel of mine unionization, culminating in the Battle of Blair Mountain, in which 10,000 coal miners took up arms against mine operators, mine guards, and paid gun thugs, and were ultimately bombed by U.S. military forces. Four narrators present different perspectives on the events, although the story focuses on Rondal Lloyd, a local miner and union organizer, and Carrie Bishop, a nurse who becomes involved through her husband andafter her husband's deathher association with Lloyd. Giardina has taken a little-known event in American history and woven a beautiful and dramatic story into it. Not to be missed. BOMC and Quality Paperback Book Club selections. Thomas L. Kilpatrick, Southern Illinois Univ. Lib., Carbondale

Library Journal

YA This well-written novel is an earnest recreation of the turbulent events in the West Virginia coal fields during the early decades of this century. The ties of the people to land and family are the book's soul, and their violent confrontations with those who took their land and tried to take their dignity are its body. Because it is well into the story before the lives of most of the characters intersect and because the book builds to a climax of bloody repression of a strike, this may not have universal appeal to young adults. But those who reach at least as far as the black union organizer's fiery death in a company furnace are likely to finish and appreciate this tale of injustice met by bravery. Mike Parsons, Houston Public Library

School Library Journal