The Sisters from Hardscrabble Bay

By: Beverly Jensen

Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne

In 1916, Sisters Idella and Avis Hillock live on the edge of a chilly bluff in New Brunswick, Canada, a hardscrabble world of potato farms, rough men, hard work, and baffling beauty. From “Gone”, the heartbreaking account of the crisis that changed their lives forever, to the darkly comic “Wake”, which follows the grown siblings’ catastrophic efforts to escort the body of their father “Wild Bill” Hillock to his funeral, these stories of Idella and Avis offer a compelling and wry vision of two remarkable women.

The vivid characters include Idella’s philandering husband, 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.

©2010 Jay Silverman, Executor of the Estate of Beverly Jensen (P)2010 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

“Profane, loving, hardnosed, and completely beautiful. If you ever loved The Memory Keeper's Daughter or The Secret Life of Bees, you have been waiting for this book and just didn't know it.” (Stephen King)

“An original voice, sharp witted and big hearted, as if a rambunctious and deeply troubled family out of William Faulkner’s Mississippi had been tempered instead by the snowy reaches of the North.” ( Poets & Writers)

What a treasure!

For anyone who started life in hardscrabble-circumstances, or loves someone who did, this is a very welcome novel. The author, Beverly Jensen, based The Sisters from Hardscrabble Bay on her mother's and aunt's experiences, and her telling is full of pathos, humor and earthiness. I have someone in my family who was a first-generation American living in rural isolation. He told me that when he went to his first day of school, "I knew two words, yes and no. But in the wrong places." Jensen's book was delightful in its own right, but it was wonderful to have my own loved ones and their stories invoked with the reading. No wonder Stephen King is a Beverly Jensen fan. Bernadette Donne voiced the book beautifully, bringing out the comedy and emotional depth in the work, while conveying the dignity Jensen accords to even her most foolish characters.

sweet and simple read

I enjoyed the sweet and sentimental glimpse into a time long gone and a life shared by sisters.