Storming Heaven: A Novel

The time, the place and the events were all well researched. The characters were so very real. The dialect was well done and I found it a real pleasure to read and enjoy the words and phrases that were so unique. A good read for historic fiction lovers.

I am grateful for writers like Denise Giardina, who has added immeasurably to my understanding of the coal-mine town, its company stores, and the many brutal attempts to discourage unionization. These are the people who put themselves on the line for the rest of us, we who in later generations have come to dismiss the incredible hardships involved in starting unions that would stand behind the common laborer who could not be heard. Whole families were engaged in this huge American struggle for decent hours and a living wage, and many were killed in the process. This book is full of the simple people who did their jobs well and didn't ask for much in return. They certainly didn't ask for the state militia to be mustered to shut them up. It is even more outrageous that the United States Government would rain bombs and poison gas upon its own citizens in West Virginia in one of the most shameful events in recent American history. My teachers never told me any of this in school, but they did say to remember that history always repeats itself.

Hailing from the coal regions of Northeastern Pennsylvania, when I learned of this title, I quickly ordered a copy and read it within a day and a half. I could not put it down, and, in fact, kept returning to passages because Giardina's prose is brilliant. The characters are so alive that I was actually upset to end the book and lose Carrie Bishop as a friend. Being a writer, I am in awe of Giardina. In fact, off I go to read the other Giardina book I ordered, "The Unquiet Earth." Anyone from coal country, be it NE PA's anthracite field or coal country in other locations, will readily identify with this story for its historical worth. Reading it is like listening to tales as told by our great-grandparents who worked in the damp,dark underground and their families, who toiled above.

This book tells a story, based on actual events, that is little known to those outside of the Appalachian coalfield area. It is told through the eyes of four characters, and is both moving and chilling. The South was built on the backs of slaves, the railroad on the backs of Chinese and other immigrants, but many Americans are unaware that our industrial progress was fueled by the coal out of West Virginia and Kentucky, mined by "mountain folk" who were brutalized by our own government, as well as the coal operators who kept them in abject poverty. A tremendous book.

And I've read a LOT of books. This is one of the few books I'veread that will have me laughing until my sides ache in one chapter,crying until I can't see the pages in another, and ready to go on aprotest march in the next.Storming Heaven is an exhaustively researched, historically accurate, and utterly compelling story of the Battle of Blair Mountain, WV in 1921. It's the story of an armed conflict between coal miners and the hired gunhands who represented the coal operators. It's a story of how the United States government turned on its own people, looking away when women and children were murdered in cold blood, sending troops into the valleys and dropping bombs on the mountains.And if the story itself isn't stirring enough, Giardina writes some of the most beautiful prose I have ever read. The mountains are *alive* in her books.My copy of Storming Heaven is so dog-eared and highlighted that I'll soon need to replace it. I am astounded that a couple of others have rated this book a 'hard read'. Compared to what? Danielle Steele?

I was absolutely intrigued by a recent write-up in the New Orleans newpaper about Denise Giardina. She grew up Methodist, studied for the Episcopal priesthood and was invited to preach at a local Baptist church. Plus she is currently a "long-shot" candidate for West Virginia Governor running against coal interests. Unfortunately I missed her talk, but I did read "Storming Heaven" and found it to be one of those books that stays with you: ordinary characters who find themselves in tough circumstances. It was so good that I read it in two sittings. It did remind me of Barbara Kingsolver's "The Poisonwood Bible" in two ways: an ensemble cast with the story being told from multiple points-of-view over time, and as a story about institutions taken to excess (religion in PB and capitalism in SH). However, religion does play a role in "Storming Heaven", but it wasn't preachy. One of the characters was a "Hardshell" Baptist preacher, a likeable, positive character unlike the preacher in "Poisonwood."Giardina's voice might be called liberal because she is clearly on the side of the union and workers with plenty of heartbreaking examples of abuse from the early coal companies. But abuse of the miners and their families also comes from the U.S. government, which interestingly brings to mind the recent events in Waco, Texas, where our government also besieged and attacked innocent citizens.Overall, this is a wonderful, well-written book. Gardina is a great storyteller. Read it.