Windfalls: A Novel [Paperback]

Jean Hegland (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 21, 2005

The acclaimed author of Into the Forest mines our fears and explores our capacity to love in this epic tale of modern motherhood.

Young and pregnant, Cerise and Anna make very different decisions about how to direct their lives. While teenaged Cerise struggles to support herself and her young daughter, Anna finishes college, marries, and later gives birth to two daughters of her own. After the birth of her second child, a tragic accident tears Cerise's life apart, and she loses her already tenuous position in society. As the story progresses--and Cerise's and Anna's lives interweave and inexorably approach each other--both women are dramatically, forever changed. Unforgettable, awe-inspiring, and grippingly honest, Windfalls is a daring and mesmerizing tale.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The decision whether or not to keep a child alters the lives of two young, single women in this moving if rather programmatic second novel by Hegland (Into the Forest). Telling parallel stories that ultimately converge, Hegland explores the value of work, art, family ties and the singular bond between women and their children. Anna, a graduate photography student, has an abortion, eventually marries and has two children; Cerise, a high school sophomore, keeps her baby, raises it on her own, ekes out a living and later has another child. In following the course of their very different lives, Hegland describes a full range of maternal emotions and experiences—the mind-numbing exhaustion; the weight of responsibility; the fierce desire to protect; the boundless joys and heartbreaking sorrows. When a tragic fire results in the death of Cerise's second child and the loss of her home, Hegland illuminates the plight of homeless people and demonstrates how easy it is to lose one's sense of self. Cerise hides behind a new identity, as "Honey," and finds a job at a day-care center, where her resolve and sense of purpose in the face of heart-shattering grief are remarkable. Meanwhile, Anna's life is upended when her husband's sudden unemployment forces a move to California from her family's Washington homestead. Circumstances force her back into the workforce, and Hegland brings fresh insight to the struggle working mothers face in juggling home life with their careers. When Honey becomes a caretaker for Anna's two young children, a curious bond develops between Anna and Honey as the two women strive to find a sense of purpose in their lives. The result is a powerful, life-changing experience for both of them, bringing Hegland's novel to a poignant, thought-provoking conclusion.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Hegland has crafted a powerfully imagined and beautifully written examination of the way a single choice can lead us inexorably to places we never thought we'd go. The story opens as two young women learn they are pregnant. Anna, a talented photography student, decides to have an abortion. Cerise, a lonely high-school girl who is desperate for someone to love, keeps her baby. From this point the lives of the two diverge dramatically; Anna graduates, marries, and ultimately becomes a photography professor with daughters of her own, while Cerise, rejected by her mother and unable to finish high school, struggles to provide for her young daughter and, later, a son. When tragedy robs Cerise of the small island of security she has created for her family, the two women cross paths in a scenario both poignant and plausible. Hegland's first novel was picked up by a major publisher after it caught the attention of both booksellers and readers, and her second lives up to its promise. Meredith Parets
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Washington Square Press (June 21, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743470087
• ISBN-13: 978-0743470087
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,312,989 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing, Beautiful, May 29, 2004

By 

Laume "a million shades of green" (United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Windfalls: A Novel (Hardcover)

One comes to Windfalls with high expectations after reading Hegland's first novel Into The Forest. No one will be disappointed. Hegland has woven a beautiful tale perfectly patterned with great characters and story lines.

The story alternates between Anna when she is in college and finds herself pregnant, and Cherise, at 15 and also pregnant. Each girl chooses a different path and way to deal with their pregnancies. What I liked about it is that it wasn't a novel where the author has decided that because this character chose a certain route then her life is predetermined for her and has to be a certain way. We follow their lives for many, many years and through other pregnancies and life changes.

It is absolutely beautifully written, with amazing metaphors and descriptions, something the faithful expect from Jean Hegland. I give it the highest rating of five, simply because there aren't ten.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Incredible Read, October 13, 2004

By 

Charles T. Markee "C.T. Markee" (Santa Rosa, California United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Windfalls: A Novel (Hardcover)

This novel written by a local Sonoma County author, Jean Hegland, is an incredible read. It took me into the lives of two women, their children, their troubles and their personal journey. As I read, I came to know these two women, care about them and eagerly await my quiet time with them each evening. Last night, I finished the book and set it down with the sadness of losing a close friend.
A piece of work is art to me when it surpasses its medium and provides me with a quality of emotion or a uniqueness of thought I didn't have before. Windfalls was both of these for me. I lived the life and felt the emotions of Anna and Cherise. At one point early in the story, there was a scene so vivid and devastating that I had to avoid the novel for several days to recover my perspective. Of course, I know these things happen, but I'm normally able to keep them at a distance. Not so with Hegland's work. She writes up close and personal and her heart shines through from the words on each page. And even during terrible events, she moves her characters forward through their heroine's journey like she's holding a baby bird and teaching it to fly.
In a limited sense, the story is about motherhood. And it is written about women but not necessarily just for women. Her birthing scenes brought me back into the delivery room where I witnessed the births of my last three children. So in the larger sense, the story is about human parenting.
The artistry of a novel also lives in the crafting of its words, and it is Hegland's choice of words, her similes, her descriptions that kept me intrigued and stirred my emotions as though I were reading poetry. But it goes further, because the right gathering of words can have a rhythm, a magic balance between the sounds so that they sing and for me, this novel was a song.
Finally, both Anna and Cherise are protagonists in the story, and I realized as I put the book down for the last time, that I knew more about Anna because of the kind of person she was. Yet Cherise was the more unusual and more interesting character, and in a subtle way, she was the predominate protagonist because of who she wasn't.
Reviewed October 5, 2004

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Hefty, Thought-Provoking, Densely Plotted Tome, May 1, 2004

By 

Bookreporter (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Windfalls: A Novel (Hardcover)

Anna, an unmarried and pregnant college student in Washington State braves a crowd of protesters to get an abortion. She's relieved to resume her schooling and the photography she loves, but she never minimizes the loss of life. Soon she drifts into a general depression, burning her photographs and unable to shoot more. Her life seems as empty as her body.

California teenager Cerise punishes herself for her forlorn awkwardness by burning her wrists on a hot iron. Feeling grateful for the attention and yet disconnected from what's happening, she sleeps with a boy she meets. Soon, she's pregnant and being counseled in a LifeRight office. Cerise informs her angry mother that she will keep her baby, and the LifeRight people help her move into her own apartment and apply for welfare. Despite her sudden popularity at school due to her exotic condition, she's soon too tired to care. She drops out of school and doesn't care when her boyfriend finds a new girlfriend.

Ten years pass. Cerise is now cleaning a nursing home to support her beloved daughter Melody. Despite her poverty, she takes joy in her little family. Anna is equally content --- married, living in her grandparents' old house, and expecting a child.

Life takes a downward turn for both women, however. Anna finds herself pregnant with her second child just as her husband loses his job. They are forced to move to California, away from family and friends. Anna's second daughter has health problems at birth, while her older child has trouble adapting to her new school. Anna has never regained the art that sustained her at one time; she can no longer lose herself in her photography.

Cerise struggles with Melody, who has become a hostile teenager. When Cerise consoles herself with a boyfriend, she finds herself pregnant. Travis is born, and his father vanishes. In an attempt to better herself, Cerise starts college. But an unbearable tragedy strikes soon after Melody leaves home forever. Cerise escapes to the forest, meeting a woman who tells her, "Healing is the human task. Your job is to heal." Cerise, homeless and nearly senseless with desperation, walks miles alone in her quest for healing. Her journey eventually leads to meeting Anna, now a college teacher, and the women draw power from the intersection of their lives.

Since I read Jean Hegland's first novel, the amazing INTO THE FOREST, I've been eagerly anticipating her second. WINDFALLS, in many ways a totally different work, continues her theme of how difficult yet possible survival is, no matter how far we fall.

If you're looking for a lighthearted feel-good escape, try another book. This is a hefty, thought-provoking, densely plotted tome, filled with intense tragedy and subtle uplifting redemption. Some of the devastating events that befall these two women are almost physically painful to read. There were moments when I nearly closed the book for good because of the bleak subject matter. But by then I was in the power of a master storyteller and firmly entrenched in these women's lives --- I had to find out what happened to them. I persevered and was glad I did. The tremendous emotional payoff was more than worth it.

--- Reviewed by Terry Miller Shannon