READERS GUIDE

Questions and Topics for Discussion

INTRODUCTION

Raised in the rugged countryside of eastern Canada, Idella and Avis Hillock are scrappy, smart, and adventurous. Their lives shaped by early misfortune, the sisters become strong women who can fend for themselves and make the best out of what life gives them. Although close, Idella and Avis are different in temperament and ambition, and as Idella pursues love and family, Avis follows a rough–and–tumble life filled with drinking and carousing; neither, however, escapes heartache. Poignant, honest, and often laugh–out–loud funny, Beverly Jensen’s The Sisters from Hardscrabble Bay is both epic and intimate as it traces the lives of Idella and Avis for over seventy years, beginning with their childhood in New Brunswick and following them into old age in New England.

A series of linked stories, The Sisters from Hardscrabble Bay begins with the profoundly affecting “Gone,” about the defining tragedy of the young girls’ lives and includes Jensen’s acclaimed story “Wake,” the bitterly funny and oddly touching tale of Avis and her brother Dalton’s attempt to bring their father’s body home for his funeral. “Wake,” nominated for a Pushcart Prize and chosen for the 2007 edition of the Best American Short Stories series, highlights the wit, clarity of emotion, and subtlety that define Jensen’s writing, but the story behind her work is as compelling as her stories themselves. In 2003, Jensen passed away from cancer, without ever having published her work. Her husband, along with her former writing instructor and friends, collaborated to publish Jensen’s stories. Jensen’s incisive and affecting prose quickly gathered a devoted following of editors and celebrated authors, such as Joyce Carol Oates, Stephen King, and Elizabeth Strout, all of whom continue to champion her writing.

Readers will no doubt embrace Jensen’s work with equal enthusiasm. The Sisters from Hardscrabble Bay is moving without being sentimental and shines a light on the ordinary lives of two extraordinary women in whom readers will see their own mothers, grandmothers, or even themselves. Jensen understood that life is filled with compromises and even disappointments, but is also punctuated by humor and great joy. Her book neatly captures that balance. Whether it’s Idella’s marriage to the philandering Eddie or Avis’s stint in prison, the sisters demonstrate a fierce inner strength and instinct for survival matched only by an ability to laugh at themselves. For more than seventy years, the one constant in their lives is each other, and The Sisters from Hardscrabble Bay is Jensen’s pitch–perfect ode to the blend of rivalry, frustration, appreciation, and all–encompassing love that is sisterhood.

Beverly Jensen grew up in Maine and earned an MFA in drama from Southern Methodist University. Since her death in 2003, her work has been published in The New England Review and included in the story collection Sisters: An Anthology. She is survived by her husband, Jay Silverman, and their two children.