Now You See It . . .
Stories from Cokesville, PA
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
It's pretty much a straight shot from the upstate New York towns of Richard Russo's books to Bathsheba Monk's Cokesville, PA. This is coal and steel country. The sort of place where an inch of soot on the windowsill means a regular paycheck—and two inches means a fat one. And what's the best make-out spot in town? Next to the burning slag heap.
In seventeen beguiling, linked stories, spanning fourty-five years, Monk brings a corner of America alive as never before. Her world bursts with indelible characters: Mrs. Szilborski, who bakes great cake, but sprays her neighbors' dogs with mace; and Mrs. Wojic, who believes her husband was reincarnated—as one of those dogs. Then there is the younger generation: Annie Kusiak , who wants to write, and Theresa Gojuk, who dreams of stardom. Cokesville is their Yoknapatawpha; they ache to escape it and the ghosts of their ancestors and the regret of their parents. What ghosts—and what regrets! When Theresa's father Bruno falls into a vat of molten steel, the mill gives the family an ingot roughly his weight to bury.
As deliciously wry as Allegra Goodman in The Family Markowitz, and with the matter-of-fact humanity of Grace Paley, Bathsheba Monk leads us into a world that is at once totally surprising and recognizable. These stories glow like molten steel.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This debut collection weaves together generations of several smalltown Polish-American families living in Cokesville, Pa., a fictional coal-mining and steelmaking town. Annie Kusiak narrates several stories, and despite several false starts including failures as a student, converting to Judaism and attempting suicide she makes it out of Cokesville, only to discover its citizens still have a vise-like hold on her imagination. After 30 years, Mrs. Szilborski turns on her neighbor Mrs. Wojic and her two dogs, one of which Mrs. Wojic believes is the reincarnation of her dead husband. Bruno Gojuk, after falling into a vat of molten steel, draws the whole town to his funeral, not for the grisly spectacle of man turned to metal, but for a chance to rub shoulders with (and size up) his runaway daughter, Theresa, now a sitcom star and the wife of a black man. Monk grew up in a coal-mining family, did a stint in the army and now lives in Allentown, Pa. The interlocking structure allows her to cover 40 years and several locales with ease. The people and situations are not particularly appealing, but Monk's unsentimental, deadpan touch with her characters is winning.