The Sisters from Hardscrabble Bay
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A tale of two sisters over seventy years that recovers the vibrant and unforgettable voice of Beverly Jensen In 1916, Idella and Avis Hillock live on the edge of a chilly bluff in New Brunswick-a hardscrabble world of potato farms and lobster traps, rough men, hard work, and baffling beauty. From "Gone," the heartbreaking story of their mother's medical crisis in childbirth, to the darkly comic "Wake," which follows the grown siblings' catastrophic efforts to escort their father, "Wild Bill" Hillock's body to his funeral, the stories of Idella and Avis offer a compelling and wry vision of two remarkable women. The vivid cast includes Idella's philandering husband Edward, her bewilderingly difficult mother-in-law- and Avis, whose serial romantic disasters never quell her irrepressible spirit. Jensen's work evokes a time gone by and reads like an instant American classic. Beverly Jensen died of cancer at the age of forty-nine without publishing her work. Since her death, her fiction has been championed by a dedicated group of supporters, including Stephen King and Joyce Carol Oates.The New York Times - Richard RussoBeverly Jensen's book The Sisters From Hardscrabble Bay may be a collection of stories, but thanks to its chronological sweep…its multiple settings…and a good half-dozen of the richest fictional characters I've encountered anywhere, the book delivers the emotional rush of a novel, indeed of a great novel. Of course, when a book is this satisfying, it probably doesn't matter what we call it, only that we have it, although in this case, sadly, we'll never have another. Jensen died of cancer in 2003, before any of her stories made it into print. In fact, it's not clear she intended for them to be published, which may explain their remarkable intimacy and unflinching honesty.
