Having read, and enjoyed, Jennifer Haigh’s Baker Towers and News From Heaven: The Bakerton Stories I was happy to see that the setting for this short story was Bakerton, Pennsylvania, a small mining town where everybody knows everybody else, and there are no secrets.
Or are there? Because when Harold Pardee, a somewhat peculiar man, reports his wife has died, people had no idea he had a wife. A wife he’s been married to, and lived in Bakerton with, for over thirty years.

It doesn’t take long for word to spread in this small town, and the story takes on a life of its own as people share their imagined anecdotes of this mystery woman and her death.

This was a memorable story for me, others might find it too “quiet” for their taste, but, for me, the tone set lent a poignant and somewhat haunting aura to this short story.



Pub Date: 19 Dec 2019

Many thanks for the ARC provided by Amazon Original Stories and NetGalley

Well, this was disappointing.

Zenith Man is a short story by Jennifer Haigh which is a part of the Inheritance series. When I read the blurb of this one, it seemed to me like a short mystery/thriller, kind of like Andy Weir's collection of short stories.

<i>"How to prove a woman had been murdered if you couldn’t prove she’d ever lived?”</i>

Harold Pardee's wife is dead. No one knew he had a wife and that's why this death seems suspicious. Investigations ensue into the mysterious death of the woman and Harold is the only suspect. Matthew, a young lawyer who works as the public defender, tries his best to understand the relationship Harold shared with his wife in order to prove his innocence.

If I hadn't gone into this book expecting there to be a surprising revelation of some kind, I'd have enjoyed this story a lot more which is why I feel the premise of the story was a little misleading. If you're planning to read this one, I suggest you keep in mind that there is no mystery; like the other books in the series it has a pretty emotional ending but unfortunately, I wasn't moved.

[I'd like to thank NetGalley, Amazon Original Stories and Jennifer Haigh for this ARC.]

“Zenith Man” appears in Inheritance and though I rated it lower than the other stories in the collection, it's the only one I read twice. Jennifer Haigh's tale begins with the death of Barbara Jean Pardee, a recluse who makes Emily Dickinson look like a hypersocial extrovert. Only one person in town besides Barbara Jean's husband ever saw her and that was back in 1979. Not surprisingly, the circumstances of her death – and her life, for that matter – soon lead to rumors that Harold committed murder. Did he suffocate his wife? Or did she die of natural causes? And what to make of their relationship? Harold's attorney describes it as “a bizarre kind of love story”--but was it really?

I still haven't made up my mind about that, in part because “Zenith Man” is the most subtle of the stories in Inheritance. It's also the darkest, the coldest and the strangest. As I read and then reread this one, I kept thinking of Susan Glaspell's play Trifles. Shirley Jackson, Flannery O'Connor and William Faulkner also came to mind (especially his story “A Rose for Emily”). On second reading, I could definitely see “bizarre” but “love”--not so much. In part, that may be because I simply despised Harold's character. He did nothing for me and was the polar opposite of a “Zenith man.”

I still recommend this story, however. Haigh is a talented writer and her prose is carefully wrought. There is much to unpack here, despite the flat tone throughout. Have you truly existed if you “pass through life like a vapor through a keyhole”? I'm not sure Haigh answers that question, but she definitely makes us think about it.

Much thanks to Amazon Original Stories and NetGalley for providing me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

★★★✰✰ 3 stars

“Had Harold Pardee killed his wife? In hair salons, at lunch counters, the question was posed. Such a death, in Bakerton, was without precedent.”


This being the first work I've read by Jennifer Haigh, I wasn't sure what to expect. I'm not sure if this story fits in the Inheritance collection. While others authors who have contributed to this series have focused on themes of reconciliation: Alice Hoffman and Anthony Marra, respectively in Everything My Mother Taught Me and The Lion's Den , focus on the fraught dynamics between a children and their parents, while in The Weddings Alexander Chee turns towards a complicated 'friendship'.
Zenith Man has a very different tone that sets it apart from the rest these stories. It seems closer to a work of Souther Gothic or Noir. Similarly to Shirley Jackson Haigh's presents us with a slightly unsettling depiction of on an 'ordinary' town and its people. There is a sense of unease as well as a good dose of dark humour.
Haigh's is a good storyteller who creates and maintains this uneasy atmosphere, one that makes us pay attention to the specific language she uses.
“In Bakerton a murder would not have been forgotten. The local memory was a powerful tool, an instrument so sensitive it reccaled events that hadn't actually occurred.
Conscious of its new status as a pplace where things happened Bakerton cleared its throat and commenced speculating.”

So while Haigh' writing style is definitely enjoyable, I wasn't as taken by the story itself. It was okay, but I was expecting a more interesting storyline.

I'm impressed at how well-developed this short story was. It definitely makes me want to check out the author's full length novels;. While I found the plot to be a bit sad see than I would have liked, I was quickly enthralled by the mystery and satisfied with the resolution.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

It was quite good. A story I read while waiting at the Doctor's office in wait. Thank God, the Zenith man came to my rescue. I Sometimes I am in no mood for a full-blown novel. This fit.

Oh so happy for a Jennifer Haigh story, what amazing writers came out of Iowa in the day. Timeless regional characters are so classic. a simple yet complex read reminiscent of Carson McCullers. I now really feel bad about what books I’ve been filling time with just to be able to have a
story at hand. More, please!!

Didnt know where this book was going. Cute book. Really enjoyed

Thanks to author, publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book. While I got the book for free, it had no bearing on the rating I gave it.

This is one of the five books in Amazon's Inheritance series. "A collection of five stories about secrets, unspoken desires, and dangerous revelations between loved ones."

Can You Feel This? by Julie Orringer
Everything My Mother Taught Me by Alice Hoffman
The Lion's Den by Anthony Marra
Zenith Man by Jennifer Haigh
The Weddings by Alexander Chee

This was a good , quick read and I did enjoy this one

No one in the neighborhood even knew Harold Pardee had a wife, so when he reports she's dead, they are all shocked. The TV repairman was thought of as odd and immediately the locals all begin to speculate that the poor woman must have had a difficult life, but then the truth come out. This quirky short story is just a little too short to build a real relationship between characters and readers

"Harold Pardee was as close to a stationary object as a person could possibly be."

I can't exactly put my finger on it, but I liked this story a lot and it stayed with me after I finished it. This is the story of Harold's wife whom he finds dead one morning and due to her recluse nature, no one has ever met her (except one person) and knew about her existence. There is a lot of suspicion around her death but how can Harold prove he didn't kill someone whom no one even knew existed? It's a weird but still intriguing premise.

This is one of the five books in Amazon's Inheritance series. "A collection of five stories about secrets, unspoken desires, and dangerous revelations between loved ones."

Can You Feel This? by Julie Orringer
Everything My Mother Taught Me by Alice Hoffman
The Lion's Den by Anthony Marra
Zenith Man by Jennifer Haigh
The Weddings by Alexander Chee

Thank you to netgalley and amazon for an early copy in exchange for an honest review.

Was not expecting this to be so short, it definitely threw me off a bit...I didn't think it was a bad story by any means but I feel as if I read a children's book so I am not sure how to rate it..

An interesting little story that is less than 25 pages, but so much is packed into just a few pages. Harold Pardee wakes up one morning and his wife has passed away at some point in the night, he calls to report and maybe doesn't choose the best of words to describe the fact that his wife is dead and he is charged with his murder. A young lawyer unfamiliar with murder trials gets a break . . .

With a short book/story, my review will be short and quick. I loved it. I always worry with short stories that with the limited pages will the story feel full and this one absolutely did. I wanted more which for me is a good sign! Pick this one up for a quick afternoon read this new year.

This is a nice story. Somehow it seems a bit poetic, I can’t really put my finger on it. I think I wouldn’t have mind if this book had more than 23 pages.

A man is accused of having murdered his wife, a wife no one ver knew he had. But how can he have killed someone that might never have lived? The story enfolds in a really interesting way and ends in just the same interesting way

“How to prove a woman had been murdered if you couldn’t prove she’d ever lived?”

Harold Pardee owned the Zenith shop in town. After his wife, Barjean, died - customers stopped coming to his store.
This story took turns I didn’t see it coming.

This was a bizarre, mysterious, kind of love story.

I enjoyed the story line and love the concept of being able to read the story in less then an hour, but I felt like it was rushed. I truly wish there had been just a little more to it.