written 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.
Price range: $7.99 through $30.95
Isabel Reddy began her career in clinical research as a science writer. She has been a guest columnist for numerous newspapers and has completed her MFA in Creative Writing at Goddard College. Ms. Reddy lives in North Carolina with her husband and German shepherd, Mac. This is her first novel.
Formats: Hardcover, Paperback, E-book, Audiobook
Pages: 254
ISBN (HC): 978-1-958754-06-1
ISBN (PB): 978-1-958754-05-4
ISBN (ebook): 978-1-958754-55-9
ISBN (audiobook): 978-1-966369-85-1
Release Date: 6/9/2023
“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
“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
“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
“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
“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
“The book is meticulously researched, full of interesting details about the lives of Appalachian coal miners and is quite moving as she describes the daily struggles of her characters.”
—Tom Nugent, investigative journalist
“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
“I found the book to be quite good. I, of course, was reviewing with a careful eye and checking for misconceptions or mistakes in the descriptions of underground mining and the perceptions the author shared about its hazards and dangers, and the ideas surrounding surface mining and impoundments.
“I found them to be generally correct and described in a way that was understandable and easy to follow. Maybe that’s because I’ve been underground numerous times, under lots of conditions (thick and shallow coal seams), longwall and continuous miners, and comprehended the scenes.
The characters in the story were also believable and the interactions among them were credible and genuine.
“I don’t think any of us understands the ominous fear and devastating anxiety of living in a condition where people or a community are put in harm’s way due to negligence and irresponsibility, poor and careless design, and outright stupidity in the name of company profits. A disaster waiting to happen. Add to that the inability and unwillingness for residents to do anything because of retribution and job losses. The community members are pitted against each other. When cornered with no alternatives, many people cannot act or are reluctant to raise the issues.”
—Jeff Skousen, professor of soil science at West Virginia University
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