From Penguin ~ 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.I really enjoyed this book and would recommend it.
It's not a cheerful happy story. The first chapter starts in 1916 in rural New Brunswick with Idella and Avis' mom dying giving birth to Emma. The story then takes off, dealing with how Idella, Avis, their dad and brother deal with their much loved mother's death. The family is very poor and it's a struggle to survive.
The book follows Idella (primarily) and Avis as they become adults, move away, marry and have children of their own while still being influenced by their childhood.
The book is mainly written in the third person, though there are a couple chapters where it's Idella and Avis' voice.
According to Jensen's website ... "In some stories, Beverly took threads from family yarns and wove them into her own fabric; these threads Beverly re-imagined, spinning out details and dialogue, fictionalizing as she went. Other stories she made up out of whole cloth." Jensen would be Idella's daughter.
Jensen died in 2003 of cancer at age 49 and this book was published after her death.
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