Download or read book Black Diamonds written by Catherine Young and published by Torrey House Press. This book was released on 2023-09-26 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A lyrical literary memoir of Scranton, Pennsylvania, Black Diamonds uncovers layers of history about the place that fueled the nation for over a century. As a girl in the 1960s, Catherine Young lived amid mountains of waste coal above ground and mine fires beneath her feet while longing for the green, lovely scene portrayed in The Lackawanna Valley, George Inness’s 1855 painting. She shows readers the valley through a child's eyes, passing through the immigrant kitchens, relief lines, and soot-stained alleys of a collapsing city—and family love amid lives cut short by coal.