Coal Run

About this book

"Coal Run is a community of ghosts and memories. After a mining explosion took the lives of so many men and transformed their families, the reverberations are still being felt in the generation of survivors thirty years later. Narrator Ivan Zoschenko, the local deputy and erstwhile football legend ("the Great Ivan Z"), his pro career sidelined by a knee injury, spends a week seemingly preparing for an old teammate's imminent release from prison. In doing so, Ivan introduces a rich cast of characters - his unexpectedly wise and comic former beauty queen sister, his former idol Val Claypool, and the young woman whose life he changed forever. And during the events of this week, Ivan confronts his demons and reveals himself to be a man whose conscience is burdened by a long-held and shocking secret that must be reckoned with."--BOOK JACKET.

Themes & subjects

About the author

Tawni O'Dell

1965

Tawni O'Dell, born and raised in the coal-mining region of Indiana, Pennsylvania, is an American novelist. She is the *New York Times* bestselling author of *Fragile Beasts*, *Sister Mine*, *Coal Run*, and *Back Roads*, which was an Oprah's Book Club pick in March 2000. Her work has been translated into 15 languages and published in over 30 countries. The first in her family to attend college, she graduated from Indiana High School and then from Northwestern University with a degree in journalism. She lived for many years in the Chicago area before moving back to Pennsylvania, where she now lives with her two children. Source: [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tawni_O'Dell)