Spotlight on Tammy Pasterick, author of Beneath the Veil of Smoke and Ash

It’s Pittsburgh, 1910—the golden age of steel in the land of opportunity. Eastern European immigrants Janos and Karina Kovac should be prospering, but their American dream is fading faster than the colors on the sun-drenched flag of their adopted country. Janos is exhausted from a decade of twelve-hour shifts, seven days per week, at the local mill. Karina, meanwhile, thinks she has found an escape from their run-down ethnic neighborhood in the modern home of a mill manager—until she discovers she is expected to perform the duties of both housekeeper and mistress. Though she resents her employer’s advances, they are more tolerable than being groped by drunks at the town’s boarding house.

When Janos witnesses a gruesome accident at his furnace on the same day Karina learns she will lose her job, the Kovac family begins to unravel. Janos learns there are people at the mill who pose a greater risk to his life than the work itself, while Karina—panicked by the thought of returning to work at the boarding house—becomes unhinged and wreaks a path of destruction so wide that her children are swept up in the storm. In the aftermath, Janos must rebuild his shattered family—with the help of an unlikely ally.

Impeccably researched and deeply human, Beneath the Veil of Smoke and Ash delivers a timeless message about mental illness while paying tribute to the sacrifices America's immigrant ancestors made.

 

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Tammy Pasterick

Fun Facts

(Stuff you may or may not already know!)

I began my career as an investigator with the National Labor Relations Board after graduating from Penn State. I carried an official government badge and conducted union elections at a wide variety of workplaces in Eastern Pennsylvania and Southern New Jersey. I oversaw elections at healthcare facilities, construction companies, and factories, but the most memorable was at an oyster processing plant and a nuclear power plant.

 

 Photo courtesy of Pixabay

When I was seventeen, I spent a month in Würzburg, Germany as a foreign exchange student. Eight years later, I returned to Germany as a university student after leaving the NLRB. I spent four months studying at the Universität Bayreuth and riding the rails on weekends. I caught a serious case of wanderlust that I still can’t shake. My favorite European destinations are the German and Austrian Alps, Tuscany, Italy, and the Greek islands.

 

The view towards Salzburg, Austria from The Eagle’s Nest in Berchtesgaden, Germany. 

I traveled there with friends in August 2012.

I’m an avid photographer. I don’t have any real training other than years of taking way too many pictures while traveling the world. I became especially skilled at capturing moving objects when my kids were little. These days, they hide from my camera, but my dog is always willing to pose. I just have to bribe her with a few baby carrots or blueberries.

 

 I took this portrait of my chocolate Labrador retriever, Pippa, 

after a nor’easter dumped five inches of snow on us in February 2019.

I rediscovered skiing in my late thirties. I spent lots of time on the slopes of Western Pennsylvania when I was a teenager, but my tight budget during college and the years after made it difficult for me to continue with the sport. There were years when I never even put on a pair of skis. That all changed when my kids were in elementary school, and my husband and I were looking for a fun family activity to fill the boring winter months. We enrolled our kids in ski school, and they absolutely fell in love with the sport. Our family now skis in Vermont at least once per year and has even made it as far as Canada and Montana.

 

 My family and I traveled to Stowe, Vermont this past winter. 
It was 0 degrees with 40 mph wind gusts when my husband took his photo.

Halloween is my favorite holiday. I love everything about it—buying pumpkins and gourds, screaming my way through haunted houses and terrifying hayrides, and dressing up to go trick-or-treating.

 

 My husband is very tall, but his platform shoes give him an additional six inches. 
He gets all the attention when we go trick-or-treating. 

Tammy Pasterick

A native of Western Pennsylvania, Tammy Pasterick grew up in a family of steelworkers, coal miners, and Eastern European immigrants. She began her career as an investigator with the National Labor Relations Board and later worked as a paralegal and German teacher. She holds degrees in labor and industrial relations from Penn State University and German language and literature from the University of Delaware. She currently lives on Maryland's Eastern Shore with her husband, two children, and chocolate Labrador retriever.

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