Storming Heaven by Denise Giardina Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Storming Heaven
Book Review: The things they forgot to teach in school
Summary: 5 Stars
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.Book Review: Vividly captures Appalachian culture and the human spirit
Summary: 5 Stars
After reading Storming Heaven a vivid image came to my mind. I thought, "When heaven storms, the rain beats down on us in torrents. It flushes our filth; it rinses the dust trapped in the crevices of our soul."
Writing about a subject such as the coal miners and the union, Denise Giardina was able to capture and retain my attention. She took the subject and interwove it with rich characters. I admire the way that Denise Giardina used language to capture the highlights of a baseball game. That's not an easy task to achieve on paper.
Denise Giardina was able to capture the nature of the human spirit in her novel. I knew that she had done this when I found myself relating to the characters and their trials and tribulations. I have had a Rondal. I tend to think most of us have. It is that person you love that doesn't quite love you back and that makes you love them even more. I have had an Albion. I tend to think most of us have. It's that person that loves you and you don't quite love them back and that makes them love you even more.
Then you grow older and your heart is tired of hurting. You don't want to be alone. You settle and you take the comfort of selecting a partner that is loyal and a friend, someone that doesn't trouble you. You settle for an Albion. You usually grow old with your Albion and think of your Rondal when the sun shines or the wind blows, but then you think about how lucky you are to have Albion when you're sick or your day is long.
But, Denise Giardina placed interesting twists and surprises in her novel.
The story has elements of sadness, but it brought no tears to my eyes. I felt bad for C.J. and his loss. I felt sorry for Rosa with her broken language and life. I felt sorry for Carrie and her heartache; I felt sorry for Miles with his longing for something more. I sympathized with the pain of being a mother that remembers nursing something that is now a gray corpse. Every character had a loss, an emptiness, a vulnerability, a strength and so forth. They were human.
I like the images of the last paragraph at the end of the book, but I feel disappointed in the ending. I am not sure I felt that she did the rest of the book justice. I thought that it was ironic that at the end when the baby has the last name "Freeman." Men are never free.
Even with death, Giardina insinuates that there is no rest. Remembrance is so powerful; it follows us to the grave and beyond. Ghosts roam not to forgive but to forget. They roam in vain.
Book Review: WV History Come to Life
Summary: 5 Stars
The version of West Virginia history I learned in school as a child never matched the history I learned perched on my daddy's knee. Giardina tells the story of her not-so-distant ancestors, my ancestors, giving a voice to people the rest of America either maligned or ignored for so many decades. She captures the dialect, the manners, and the spirit of these people, telling their story in a way only someone who loves them fiercely could ever manage. Giardina is one of the people who have proven to me that Appalachia is worth writing about, after all.Book Review: WV coal mine wars: a story of love, loss, greed, and grace
Summary: 5 Stars
Giardina gives voice to Appalachian mountain folks, their deep rootedness to place, and the terrible price they paid for justice and liberty in a tragic and ongoing chapter in American history. Her characters tell their stories of lives and livelihoods in West Virginia coal country, and their epic fight to save their dignity and freedom. Of family land stolen by the coal companies. Of the poverty of mining towns. Of the courageous men and women who risked their lives and defied big coal to unionize. The story culminates in the Battle of Blair Mountain where the United States Army and state government law enforcement, siding with big business, join coal company thugs to brutally beat-down pro-union miners and their families. And yet ultimately, this is not a story of defeat. It is a story of resilience and grace and the good fight. And the fight goes on today in Appalachia. The battlelines have shifted to the radical scorched earth practices of "mountaintop removal" that destroy mountains, bury mountain streams under rubble, and threaten the health and vitality of local communities (see: http://ilovemountains.org/resources/). With luck, we'll have a new generation of men and women fighting the structures of power and domination that permit this obscene practice.Book Review: an excellent read; hard to put down
Summary: 5 Stars
Giardina wove the history of the West Virginia Mine Wars into an eloquent novel, not only entertaining, but informing the reader. The story is heart-rendering in that so many lives are torn apart by the endless greed of coal operators. The heros of the book are many, those Appalachians who stood up for the freedom that had been promised to them. This is one of the best books I have read recently, and I would recommend it to all, particularly if you are interested in an untold story of American history.