Heat and Light: A Novel
Written by Jennifer Haigh
Narrated by Michael Rahhal and Allyson Ryan
4/5
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About this audiobook
Acclaimed New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Haigh returns to the Pennsylvania town at the center of her iconic novel Baker Towers in this ambitious, achingly human story of modern America and the conflicting forces at its heart—a bold, moving drama of hope and desperation, greed and power, big business and small-town families.
Forty years ago, Bakerton coal fueled the country. Then the mines closed, and the town wore away like a bar of soap. Now Bakerton has been granted a surprise third act: it sits squarely atop the Marcellus Shale, a massive deposit of natural gas.
To drill or not to drill? Prison guard Rich Devlin leases his mineral rights to finance his dream of farming. He doesn’t count on the truck traffic and nonstop noise, his brother’s skepticism or the paranoia of his wife, Shelby, who insists the water smells strange and is poisoning their frail daughter. Meanwhile his neighbors, organic dairy farmers Mack and Rena, hold out against the drilling—until a passionate environmental activist disrupts their lives.
Told through a cast of characters whose lives are increasingly bound by the opposing interests that underpin the national debate, Heat and Light depicts a community blessed and cursed by its natural resources. Soaring and ambitious, it zooms from drill rig to shareholders’ meeting to the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor to the ruined landscape of the “strippins,” haunting reminders of Pennsylvania’s past energy booms. This is a dispatch from a forgotten America—a work of searing moral clarity from one of the finest writers of her generation, a courageous and necessary book.
Jennifer Haigh
Jennifer Haigh is the author of the short-story collection News from Heaven and six bestselling and critically acclaimed novels, including Mrs. Kimble, Faith and Heat and Light, which was named a Best Book of 2016 by the New York Times, The Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal and NPR. Her books have won the PEN/Hemingway Award, the Massachusetts Book Award and the PEN New England Award in Fiction, and have been translated widely. She lives in New England.
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Reviews for Heat and Light
85 ratings9 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Elaborately constructed novel about the energy industry and the environmental impact of fracking. Set in the fictional rural town of Bakerton, Pennsylvania, representatives of a Texas-based oil company convince landowning residents to sell their mineral rights. Fracking involves high-pressure injection of liquids into underground shale deposits to extract natural gas. Many residents see it as a way out of their economic woes. Some are concerned over the ecological impact.
The novel contains a wide array of characters, covering all sides of the fracking debate. They include local residents, Texas oil executives, salespeople, drilling crews, sub-contractors, and environmental activists. The characters are believable, and the community is well-drawn. It is as easy to sympathize with the family that wants to save money to fulfill their dream of opening a dairy farm as it is with the organic farmers that do not want questions about the quality of their products. In this depressed economic area, the author incorporates struggles related to job losses and drug addictions.
This novel is a story about class, economics, and the impact of drilling. Dramatic tension is maintained through the question of whether or not the drinking water is contaminated, resulting in disagreements among families and neighbors. Haigh’s writing is imaginative and perceptive. I am impressed by her ability to juggle the many storylines without seeming overextended. I will definitely be reading more of her work. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5On the surface, this is a novel about fracking, and how it is harmful to all living things - which it absolutely is. But it's about so much more. About life today. And how past events - like Three Mile Island, or Chernobyl - have reached far into the future. A large, multigenerational cast of colorful, utterly human characters add depth and meaning to HEAT & LIGHT, one more chapter in author Jennifer Haigh's continuing saga of the fictional town of Bakerton, Pennsylvania. If you've not yet read her other two books, BAKER TOWERS and NEWS FROM HEAVEN, do. Oh, and don't forget her latest novel, MERCY STREET (ostensibly about abortion, but again about so much more), because Bakerton is in there too. Enough said. I love the way this woman writes. My very highest recommendation.- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Well done story about a community and the effects fracking has on it whether they leased their land or not. A very timely book especially where I live. So much that happens in the book is happening here and knowing people who have leased their land to the companies doing the fracking, I see the same thing happening here. These are good characters. I liked the storylines for each of them. I wish Jess' would have ended better. I did not like Kip and his cronies. As long as the money was coming in, they never questioned or reined in Kip. I liked Rich's introspection as the end. Excellent reading. Worth your time.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Excellent book. Interesting story and good characters.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A story about gas fracking in Pennsylvania, has potential but had too many separate stories going in it to allow me to be personally involved in the story. I found none of the characters likable.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jennifer Haigh does a nice job here of bringing the western Pennsylvania fracking industry to a laymen's understanding, presenting various points of view through the lives and loves of different characters. The man family is the Devins. Richard is a prison guard employee, who decides to sign the lease to give the Darco company the rights to drill on his land for natural gas. This money could bring him the cash needed to finally farm the family homestead. His father, who now runs the local bar in town was one of the many people who lost work as the coal mines closed down. Haight's earlier work, Baker Towers, would be a nice but not necessary prerequisite to the lives of this community. Richard's wife, Shelby, fears that her daughter is unwell and this is exacerbated when their water supply starts to smell. Rich's brother, Darren , visits Bakerton and weighs in on this as well. It is a rate visit since his commitment to drug rehab counseling, a job he needs in order to keep his own addiction at bay. Other points of view include the local organic dairy farmers whose business may suffer, the nearby college professor, whose mission in life is to rally the locals against the destruction of the land, and even the CEO of the drilling company who suffers from the increasing costs and the unwanted lawsuits. Haigh does a nice job of not preaching a solution, but presenting a problem as it relates to the many characters whose subplots make for interesting reading.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Insufferably boring and pontificating.This was the only book I had on an airplane (Spirit Airlines, at that) and I could hardly force myself to turn the page. Every now and then there was a glimmer of decent writing, which is why I gave this two stars, but mostly I didn't care, I didn't care, I didn't care.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Long time readers of this author knows that she doesn't shy away from difficult subjects, instead she tackles them head on. In this one she return to Bakerton, Pennsylvania whose glory days are gone. One know for their Bakerton coal, the town is now in its death throes. Many had left, stores and businesses are dying and then seemingly from nowhere they are given an opportunity. Natural gas companies come to town and all they have to do is sign on the dotted line. Instant money to allow drilling, paid by the acre, easy money or so they think. Just sign, don't read the contract, just so happy for a way our of debt, a way to get ahead.Fracking, fossil fuels, our endless demand for cheaper energy. Many of these characters are familiar from her previous books set in this town. But now we see the human cost of fracking, costs on characters that are now in over their head. We see the greed of the companies out to make a buck, not caring what it does to the environment or the people. Extensive research, much is learned about this horrible practice, Colorado and Wyoming have now been mostly cracked out. Three mile island and its devastation are referred to, its consequences horrific. Environmental illnesses and injuries, things we don't understand. All encompassed by the people of Beaverton, people trying to live their lives, some great characters, some hard to like, but this personal touch makes it all very real. Supporters, lawyers, protesters, all sides. People who have owned farms for years, now at risk. At times Haigh came awfully close to being preachy, but sometimes that is what it takes to relate a subject so important. There is one part, near the end that I wished she had left out. Felt it wasn't necessary to the plot and really didn't fit but other than that this was a very good story. A very important one.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A return to the dying coal town of Bakerton finds fracking salesmen buying up large tracts of land. So there's money to be had, but still no local jobs. There's increased revenue for small businesses, but it's all temporary. There are too many characters in this story, and a meandering, disorganized plot. Some of the people are worth following, but with too many names and situations, it's too big a mashup to have any specific impact.Also included, to make a Trifecta of Misery, is a subplot concerning a boy who grew up with the Three Mile Island nuclear plant disaster down the block and his death years later from an unusual cancer.Perhaps the book's purpose is to make an environmental statement, but the thieving ways of the fracking company owner seems to be thrown in as a minor afterthought.Just not effective on any level except the quality of the writing, and that is just not enough to sustain a too large book.