SOURCE: A review of The Patch Boys, in Los Angeles Times Book Review, October 19, 1986, p. 3.

In the following review, Stone offers a positive assessment of The Patch Boys.

The easy rhythms and harsh reality of “patch” towns where coal was king. People with names like Will, Bing, Jesse, Lucey, and “The Nipper.” Boys sneaking puffs of Fatima cigarettes while gazing in rapture at passing Pierce-Arrow automobiles. Purple twilight in a tent along the banks of the Susquehanna. Idle talk of Babe Ruth and Roger “The Rajah” Hornsby. Fields and woods shimmering in heat while far below in the black bowels of the earth, men labor and die. A young boy with inordinate common sense growing to manhood in Pennsylvania mining country during the summer of 1925.

Jay Parini, who grew up in Scranton, Penn., and is the author of a previous novel and two works of poetry, including the...