In coal country, when a miner survives the collapse of a mine, he'll often surface with a permanent mark stamped onto his skin--a greenish blue imprint, sometimes jagged-edge, sometimes smooth--a symbol of endurance and sacrifice. A coal tattoo. In Silas House's new novel, everyone who's raised in Black Banks is indelibly marked by and forever connected to the place, which is how it is for Anneth and Easter.

At the heart of The Coal Tattoo is the story of these two sisters who can't live together, but can't bear to be apart. Left to raise themselves in a small coal mining town in Tennessee, Anneth and Easter are as different as night and day. One worships the flashy world of Nashville, the other is a devout Pentecostal. One falls into the lap of any man, the other is too afraid to date. Both are looking for a way to come to terms with their mother's abandonment. Anneth, just sixteen, takes off to Nashville and elopes, while Easter, weathering her own young marriage, faces a crisis of faith.

For both sisters, their journey will bring them back to the land and to each other.