The Coal Tattoo [Hardcover]

Silas House (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 24, 2004

Two sisters can't stand to live together, but can't bear to be apart. One worships the flashy world of Nashville, the other is a devout Pentecostal. One falls into the lap of any man, the other is afraid to even date. One gets pregnant in a flash, the other desperately wants to have child.

This is what's at the heart of Silas House's third, masterful novel, which tells the story of Easter and Anneth, tragically left parentles as children, who must raise themselves and each other in their small coal-mining town. Easter is deeply religious, keeps a good home, believes in tradition, and is intent on rearing her wild younger sister properly. Anneth is untamable, full of passion, determined to live hard and fast. It's only a matter of time before their predilections split their paths and nearly undo their bond. How these two women learn to overcome their past, sacrifice deeply for each other, and live together again in the only place that matters is the story of The Coal Tattoo.

Silas House's work has been described as compelling, seamless, breathtaking, heartbreaking, eloquent, stunningly beautiful, and exquisite. In The Coal Tattoo, he raises the bar once again.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Evocative prose and unforgettable characters mark this haunting novel from House, a Kentucky writer who mines the storytelling tradition of Appalachia. Set in the 1960s, the novel functions as a prequel of sorts to House's award-winning book Clay's Quilt, offering two sisters who are as different as night and day. Anneth—who will become Clay's mother—is a wild-blooded manic depressive determined to suck joy from life, while her older sister Easter, a deeply religious Pentecostal woman with the gift of foresight, has "decided to walk through life like a whisper." House paints both characters lovingly and unsentimentally, charting how each remains devoted to the other through tragedy and a battle to hold on to the one constant that unites them in a turbulent world: their land. As they fight to protect their mountain from the mining company that wants to clear the earth and strip it bare, the sisters make sacrifices for one another that will grip the reader. House has a gift for understanding the cadences of mountain folk religion and the way that music sustains people's spirits. The titular image of the coal tattoo—a bluish tinge that seeps under a miner's skin and leaves a permanent stain—is a perfect metaphor for the novel's depiction of the indelible imprint the land leaves on the human soul.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

The talented House continues his long love letter to Kentucky in this starkly beautiful, overtly literary third novel, following Clay's Quilt (2000) and A Parchment of Leaves (2002). Restless 16-year-old Anneth is running wild, drawn to nightclubs, liquor, and music, while her steadfast sister, Easter, is a devout Pentecostal. Despite their differences, the two sisters have an unbreakable bond, forged in the aftermath of their father's death in a coal-mining accident and their mother's suicide. Anneth elopes with a musician to the big city of Nashville, where she becomes so homesick for the water and greenery of her Appalachian hometown of Free Creek, Kentucky, she comes racing back. Easter faces the pain of a miscarriage, which severely tests her faith. Whether describing the sight of dozens of redbirds or the taste of moonshine, House does so in prose that is both lovely and cadenced. Rural Kentucky is so vividly rendered, it's no surprise native son House has been showered with regional awards. In addition, his work on National Public Radio should garner extra attention for this title. Joanne Wilkinson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Algonquin Books; 1ST edition (September 24, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565123689
• ISBN-13: 978-1565123687
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #666,202 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Silas House is the author of four novels: Clay's Quilt (2001), A Parchment of Leaves (2003), The Coal Tattoo (2004), Eli the Good (2009), a play, The Hurting Part (2005), and Something's Rising (2009), a creative nonfiction book about social protest co-authored with Jason Howard. A new play, Long Time Traveling premiered in April 2009.

House serves as Writer-in-Residence at Lincoln Memorial University, where he also directs the Mountain Heritage Literary Festival. He is a contributing editor for No Depression magazine, where he has done long features on such artists as Lucinda Williams, Nickel Creek, Buddy Miller, Kelly Willis, Darrell Scott, Delbert McClinton, and many others. He is also one of Nashville's most in-demand press kit writers, having written the press kit bios for such artists as Kris Kristofferson, Kathy Mattea, Leann Womack, and many others.

House is a two-time finalist for the Southern Book Critics Circle Prize, a two-time winner of the Kentucky Novel of the Year, the Appalachian Book of the Year, Appalachian Writer of the Year (2009), the Chaffin Prize for Literature, the Award for Special Achievement from the Fellowship of Southern Writers, and many other honors. Recently House was personally selected by the subject to write the foreword for the biography of Earl Hamner, creator of The Waltons. In 2005 he also wrote the introduction for the new HarperCollins edition of Gregory of Nyssa's Life of Moses.

House's work can be found in Newsday, Oxford American, Bayou, The Southeast Review, The Louisville Review, The Beloit Fiction Journal, Wind, Night Train, and others, as well as in the anthologies New Stories From the South 2004: The Year's Best, Christmas in the South, A Kentucky Reader, Of Woods and Water, A Kentucky Christmas, Shouts and Whispers, High Horse, The Alumni Grill, Stories From the Blue Moon Café I and II, and many others.

For his environmental activism House received the Helen Lewis Community Lewis Award in 2008 from the Appalachian Studies Association.

House is currently working on his fifth novel, Evona Darling.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of my favorite authors, October 15, 2004

By 

Ratmammy "The Ratmammy" (Ratmammy's Town, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Coal Tattoo (Hardcover)

THE COAL TATTOO by Silas House
October 15,2004

THE COAL TATTOO by Silas House was my second book by this author, and third in his "trilogy" of books that take place in the mountains of Kentucky. The novel features characters that appear in his previous two books, A PARCHMENT OF LEAVES and his first, CLAY'S QUILT. All three are wonderful books that center on life in the Kentucky mountains, families that built their lives around the coalmines in the early to mid-twentieth century.

In THE COAL TATTOO, the two main characters are sisters Anneth and Easter, who are as different as night and day. Anneth is wild and unleashed, while Easter is a born-again Christian. Their story is a tale of two sisters who love each other, but find that their differences tear them apart.

What I love about these books is the depth that Silas House goes to describe his characters. One feels that these characters are part of one's own family, or maybe a reader may want to meet these characters, because House creates characters that are truly real and three-dimensional. I felt at home with his characters from A PARCHMENT OF LEAVES, and I feel the same with THE COAL TATTOO. He also does a good job at describing the lives of these people, and it feels like I am with them, in the bar dancing up a storm, or in church singing with the choir.

These three books are what I call period pieces, and reflect a time long gone. History and technology has changed what this fictional place may have been like half a century ago, but they remain unchanged in these books by Silas House. I highly recommend reading all his books. These are not easy reads, but one will feel a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction after experiencing these books. THE COAL TATTOO is no exception, and the Ratmammy rates it five stars.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Exquisite and powerful author!!!!!!!!!, December 20, 2004

By 

jeanne-scott (Virginia) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Coal Tattoo (Hardcover)

Silas House is one of the greatest and most gifted authors of our time!! If I could give this book MORE THAN 5 STARS, I would!! His magic with words and the thoughts and dialogue of the people who live in his stories is absolutely amazing.
This is a beautiful tale of the deep love of two sisters who have endured much together as they enter their adult lives, making decisions and choices that may forver alter their relationship with each other. Their lives have been defined by the coal mining that is the lifeblood of their mountain home, a part of their past and their present but how will it change their future?
As troubled times strike the sisters, Silas House brings us into their hearts and minds, giving depth and soul to each of them. He makes you care deeply about what is happening to them in their lives.
Two sisters, so very different and yet so closely bonded......when they are rocked to their core by life's events, can they save each other from despair and bring hope back or will they have to learn to lead separate lives.
This tale would be the second story in a trilogy, coming after Parchment of Leaves and before Clay's Quilt. Silas House is such an exquisite and powerful author that each novel can easily stand on it's own merits.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars House continues to shine with Coal Tattoo, September 19, 2004

By 

Tracy Kershaw-Staley (Dayton, OH) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Coal Tattoo (Hardcover)

In Coal Tattoo, Silas House fills in the story of the families he gave us in Parchment of Leaves and Clay's Quilt.
House's descriptions of nature are poetic. He nails the speech patterns of Eastern Kentuckians without being cruel or condescending. He describes authentic faith in God respectfully; he does not stoop to easy generalizations or caricatures. As a native of Eastern Kentucky, realistic portrayals of its people and land are important to me, and House does not disappoint.
Although set firmly in Eastern Kentucky, the stories are universal. Coal Tattoo is a family story, a sister story, a land story, and a Kentucky story. If you're new to his work, I would suggest starting with Parchment, then Coal Tattoo and then Clay's Quilt.