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A review by samhouston
Whisper Hollow by Chris Cander
3.0
For a variety of political and economic reasons, a whole way of life in West Virginia is slowly dying out. An abundance of cheap alternate fuel natural gas, combined with strict environmental regulations requiring that coal plants meet strict clean air regulations, means that coalminers have less and less reason to risk their lives underground every day. But that was not the case during the twentieth century when the coal industry was still the chief employer of generations of West Virginians.
Verra is very much a coal town when Myrthen Bergmann’s parents arrive there as young German immigrants in 1916, and soon enough, Otto Bergmann finds his place in Verra’s coal mine. Within a few months, the young couple has twin daughters, Myrthen and Ruth, and is doing well – and all remains well until a tug-of-war scuffle between Myrthen and Ruth leaves Ruth lying dead at the base of the cellar stairs. Myrthen, never able to admit to herself that she was the cause of her sister’s death, decides to become a nun and seems certain to achieve her goal until one night of passion leads to a wedding rather than to a convent.
Alta Krol, a neighbor of Myrthen’s, wants badly someday to be an artist but she is trapped in a life of caring for her widowed father and her siblings. Alta, though, has a suitor, albeit a man she has known for less than five months, and when he proposes, she accepts. But when the smoke clears, and the two women are married, it turns out that Myrthen marries the man that Alta will always wish that she had married.
The second part of Whisper Hollow takes place in the 1960s, but in the meantime, the world has come crashing down around the ears of both Myrthen and Alta. The two women are not living lives anything at all like the lives they had dreamed of living as young women – and with good reason. This portion of Whisper Hollow, however, centers around a young couple beginning their own marriage in 1965.
Lidia and Danny are, as the old song goes, “teenagers in love,” and they expect to spend the rest of their lives together – just not in Verra, West Virginia. Danny and his mother are only in Verra to take care of his grandfather, and Danny plans to go to law school as soon as he finishes high school there. Lidia, however, has some news for him: she is pregnant and they need to get married now, not later. A few years later when Gabriel, their four-year-old, starts to reveal delicate secrets from Verra’s dark past, Lidia and Danny will wish they had left town when they had the chance.
Whisper Hollow is a highly atmospheric fifty-year look at life in one of America’s coal company towns. It portrays the strength and stamina necessary on the parts of men and women to survive the physical and mental pressures associated with that kind of work, and it makes clear just how dedicated these men are to the welfare of their families. What else could keep them going back into the darkness day after day the way they do?
Verra is very much a coal town when Myrthen Bergmann’s parents arrive there as young German immigrants in 1916, and soon enough, Otto Bergmann finds his place in Verra’s coal mine. Within a few months, the young couple has twin daughters, Myrthen and Ruth, and is doing well – and all remains well until a tug-of-war scuffle between Myrthen and Ruth leaves Ruth lying dead at the base of the cellar stairs. Myrthen, never able to admit to herself that she was the cause of her sister’s death, decides to become a nun and seems certain to achieve her goal until one night of passion leads to a wedding rather than to a convent.
Alta Krol, a neighbor of Myrthen’s, wants badly someday to be an artist but she is trapped in a life of caring for her widowed father and her siblings. Alta, though, has a suitor, albeit a man she has known for less than five months, and when he proposes, she accepts. But when the smoke clears, and the two women are married, it turns out that Myrthen marries the man that Alta will always wish that she had married.
The second part of Whisper Hollow takes place in the 1960s, but in the meantime, the world has come crashing down around the ears of both Myrthen and Alta. The two women are not living lives anything at all like the lives they had dreamed of living as young women – and with good reason. This portion of Whisper Hollow, however, centers around a young couple beginning their own marriage in 1965.
Lidia and Danny are, as the old song goes, “teenagers in love,” and they expect to spend the rest of their lives together – just not in Verra, West Virginia. Danny and his mother are only in Verra to take care of his grandfather, and Danny plans to go to law school as soon as he finishes high school there. Lidia, however, has some news for him: she is pregnant and they need to get married now, not later. A few years later when Gabriel, their four-year-old, starts to reveal delicate secrets from Verra’s dark past, Lidia and Danny will wish they had left town when they had the chance.
Whisper Hollow is a highly atmospheric fifty-year look at life in one of America’s coal company towns. It portrays the strength and stamina necessary on the parts of men and women to survive the physical and mental pressures associated with that kind of work, and it makes clear just how dedicated these men are to the welfare of their families. What else could keep them going back into the darkness day after day the way they do?