That You Remember
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by Isabel Reddy
In 2019, Aleena Rowan, adrift in the wake of a failed marriage, receives a box of her father's desk diaries from the years he worked as a coal executive. She expects to find nothing more than the cost of business lunches and meeting notes. Instead, she finds a mysterious name, Sara, scrawled on a slip of paper in her father's handwriting.
Frank Rowan meets Sara Stone while fishing on a frigid January day and sees her again waiting tables at Otter Creek’s only restaurant. It is 1970, and Frank and Sara’s relationship grows despite the impossible distance between a New York corner office and a Kentucky coal hollow. Initially, Sara sees Frank as her ticket to a better life, but other forces compete with her dreams – like protecting her town from the increasingly perilous coal slurry dam.
In her debut novel, told from both sides of the coal industry, Isabel Reddy brings to life the conflicts and undercurrents of an Appalachian mining town on the eve of disaster.
PRAISE FOR That You Remember
“The characters in the story were…believable and the interactions among them were credible and genuine.” —Jeff Skousen, Professor of Soils and Reclamation Specialist at West Virginia University
“A page-turner of impending doom that makes time for the complexities of human relationships.” --Kirkus Reviews
“Centered on the vividly evoked hollows and pitmouths of Appalachian mining country in 1970, Reddy’s accomplished debut deftly blends past and present, romance and tragedy, social realism and self-exploration, along with a present-day woman’s search to better understand her coal executive father—and the workings of her own heart.” —BookLife Reviews
“Reddy’s novel pulled at my heartstrings. The characters…felt like people I know…a book that will stay with you…a story that is impossible to forget.” — Aaron Parsons, Director of Archives and History at the West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture & History
“Brilliant pacing, characterization, and imagery. That You Remember is a universally worthy, socioeconomic tour-de-force. It is fiction resonating as fact.” — Peter Kilborn, New York Times correspondent and author, Next Stop Reloville
"That You Remember is an intriguing novel set in Appalachian coal country. The actual operation of a coal mine is described so well that the reader feels as if they are there. The ways that coal mining can lead to flooding are meticulously researched and plainly laid out for the reader. But the human side is where this book shines. The feeling of always impending disaster shared by the miners’ families leaps onto every page, and is made so real in the quote: “You always kiss a miner goodbye.”....This is a gripping, informative, and tragic story. Highly recommended." --- Bonnie Demoss, Historical Novel Society magazine
“With this novel, Isabel Reddy has given us a landscape so dramatically rendered, we can almost walk around in it. As thoughtful as it is evocative, That You Remember is an ode to a region, an elegy for a tidal wave of destruction, vivid and haunting, full of life and loss alike.” —Judy Goldman, author, Child: A Memoir
“Isabel Reddy has written a big, sweeping novel with a big, beating heart. An entire mountain community comes to life in this epic story of a Kentucky mine disaster told from both sides as it follows the star-crossed love between an absentee mine owner from Connecticut and a beautiful local waitress. That You Remember could not be more relevant today, carrying an important message for our own time. Deep characterization and important themes mark this engrossing novel as a major achievement—as well as a page-turner.” —Lee Smith, author, The Last Girls
“The characters in That You Remember are decent, humble, salt-of-the-earth types who, frankly, don’t much get written about. Isabel Reddy allows them their dignity, their struggles, their humanity. This is, for my money, what the novel does best of all—takes situations that we think are so foreign to us and reminds us of our shared humanity, of all the things that unite and link us: wishes for love, family, safety. It’s a big-hearted and compassionate view of the world, and I think that’s immensely valuable, especially now.” —Mark Sarvas, author, Memento Park
“In this strongly felt, highly compelling debut novel, Isabel Reddy finds romance in the hardscrabble world of Appalachian coal mining.” — Michael Shnayerson, author, Coal River
“A moving, imagined story of coal miners and their families leading up to a coal mine disaster in Appalachia.” —Gerald M. Stern, author, The Buffalo Creek Disaster
In 2019, Aleena Rowan, adrift in the wake of a failed marriage, receives a box of her father's desk diaries from the years he worked as a coal executive. She expects to find nothing more than the cost of business lunches and meeting notes. Instead, she finds a mysterious name, Sara, scrawled on a slip of paper in her father's handwriting.
Frank Rowan meets Sara Stone while fishing on a frigid January day and sees her again waiting tables at Otter Creek’s only restaurant. It is 1970, and Frank and Sara’s relationship grows despite the impossible distance between a New York corner office and a Kentucky coal hollow. Initially, Sara sees Frank as her ticket to a better life, but other forces compete with her dreams – like protecting her town from the increasingly perilous coal slurry dam.
In her debut novel, told from both sides of the coal industry, Isabel Reddy brings to life the conflicts and undercurrents of an Appalachian mining town on the eve of disaster.
PRAISE FOR That You Remember
“The characters in the story were…believable and the interactions among them were credible and genuine.” —Jeff Skousen, Professor of Soils and Reclamation Specialist at West Virginia University
“A page-turner of impending doom that makes time for the complexities of human relationships.” --Kirkus Reviews
“Centered on the vividly evoked hollows and pitmouths of Appalachian mining country in 1970, Reddy’s accomplished debut deftly blends past and present, romance and tragedy, social realism and self-exploration, along with a present-day woman’s search to better understand her coal executive father—and the workings of her own heart.” —BookLife Reviews
“Reddy’s novel pulled at my heartstrings. The characters…felt like people I know…a book that will stay with you…a story that is impossible to forget.” — Aaron Parsons, Director of Archives and History at the West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture & History
“Brilliant pacing, characterization, and imagery. That You Remember is a universally worthy, socioeconomic tour-de-force. It is fiction resonating as fact.” — Peter Kilborn, New York Times correspondent and author, Next Stop Reloville
"That You Remember is an intriguing novel set in Appalachian coal country. The actual operation of a coal mine is described so well that the reader feels as if they are there. The ways that coal mining can lead to flooding are meticulously researched and plainly laid out for the reader. But the human side is where this book shines. The feeling of always impending disaster shared by the miners’ families leaps onto every page, and is made so real in the quote: “You always kiss a miner goodbye.”....This is a gripping, informative, and tragic story. Highly recommended." --- Bonnie Demoss, Historical Novel Society magazine
“With this novel, Isabel Reddy has given us a landscape so dramatically rendered, we can almost walk around in it. As thoughtful as it is evocative, That You Remember is an ode to a region, an elegy for a tidal wave of destruction, vivid and haunting, full of life and loss alike.” —Judy Goldman, author, Child: A Memoir
“Isabel Reddy has written a big, sweeping novel with a big, beating heart. An entire mountain community comes to life in this epic story of a Kentucky mine disaster told from both sides as it follows the star-crossed love between an absentee mine owner from Connecticut and a beautiful local waitress. That You Remember could not be more relevant today, carrying an important message for our own time. Deep characterization and important themes mark this engrossing novel as a major achievement—as well as a page-turner.” —Lee Smith, author, The Last Girls
“The characters in That You Remember are decent, humble, salt-of-the-earth types who, frankly, don’t much get written about. Isabel Reddy allows them their dignity, their struggles, their humanity. This is, for my money, what the novel does best of all—takes situations that we think are so foreign to us and reminds us of our shared humanity, of all the things that unite and link us: wishes for love, family, safety. It’s a big-hearted and compassionate view of the world, and I think that’s immensely valuable, especially now.” —Mark Sarvas, author, Memento Park
“In this strongly felt, highly compelling debut novel, Isabel Reddy finds romance in the hardscrabble world of Appalachian coal mining.” — Michael Shnayerson, author, Coal River
“A moving, imagined story of coal miners and their families leading up to a coal mine disaster in Appalachia.” —Gerald M. Stern, author, The Buffalo Creek Disaster
