Bathsheba Monk has created a fictional town, Cokesville, Pa. à la Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio.
Annie Kusiiak narrates several stories about the fictional coal-mining town in no particular order or subject matter.
Monk makes clear how the home had a hold on its inhabitants, no matter how unpleasant the experience was.
The people and events are anything but pleasant, but the stories have the ring of truth to them, and the characters
are believable and memorable.
The stories have a "slice of life" appearance in that they do not end in a conventional manner. This is a refreshing
aspect of the book. The story may or may not be picked up in a later story.
The stories need not be read in any particular order, but the whole book should be read to get an idea of what Cokesville
was like and, more to the point, the kind of citizens the town produced -both those who left and those who stayed.
Cokesville had a grip on all of them.
A nice change of pace in story reading...