| Birth Place: | Barnesboro, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Birth Date: | 16 October 1968 |
| Occupation: | Author |
| Genre: | Literary fiction |
| Education: | Dickinson College Iowa Writers' Workshop (MFA) |
| Notable Works: | Mrs. Kimble, Baker Towers, The Condition, Faith, News from Heaven, Heat and Light, Mercy Street |
| Awards: | PEN Hemingway Award, Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award |
Jennifer Haigh (born October 16, 1968) is an American novelist and short story writer in the realist tradition. Her work has been compared to that of Richard Ford, Richard Price and Richard Russo.[1]
Haigh was born in Barnesboro, a Western Pennsylvania coal town 85 miles northeast of Pittsburgh in Cambria County. She attended Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. She was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for fiction in 2018.[2] She teaches in the graduate program in creative writing at Boston University.[3]
Haigh's first novel, Mrs. Kimble (2003)— telling the story of a mysterious con man named Ken Kimble through the eyes of his three wives – won the PEN/Hemingway Award for debut fiction. Her short stories have been published widely in print and online journals, including The Atlantic, Granta, Ploughshares, and many others. Her short story "Paramour" was included in The Best American Short Stories 2012.
Three of Haigh's books are set in fictional Saxon County, Pennsylvania, in the coal region of northern Appalachia, earning comparisons to Sherwood Anderson's seminal short story collection, Winesburg, Ohio.[4]
In Baker Towers (2005), a mining family experiences the decline of the coal economy in the years following World War II. In her review, New York Times book critic Janet Maslin wrote, "Ms. Haigh, beyond being an expert natural storyteller with an acute sense of her characters' humanity, sustains a clear sense of Bakerton's vitality, or lack thereof."[5] Baker Towers was a New York Times bestseller and won the 2006 L.L. Winship/PEN New England Award award for best book by a New England writer.
Published in 2013, Haigh's short story collection News From Heaven returns to Saxon County and features encore appearances by several characters from Baker Towers.[6] It won both the Massachusetts Book Award[7] and the PEN New England Award in Fiction.[8]
Heat and Light (2016) explores the effects of natural gas fracking on the now-devastated community of Bakerton. The novel was reviewed by The New York Times,[9] The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe,[10] the Pittsburgh Post Gazette,[11] and National Public Radio.[12] [13] A critic for The Washington Post wrote, "Haigh's achievement in this expansive, gripping novel is to delineate the ways in which we are all connected, for better and worse, by pipelines and electrical wires, coal dust and gas fumes. Bakerton is us, and we are Bakerton."[14] Heat and Light won the Bridge Book Award[15] and a Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.[16] It was named a Best Book of 2016 by The New York Times,[17] The Washington Post,[18] The Wall Street Journal[19] and NPR.[20]
Several of Haigh's novels are set in Boston, where she lives and writes.[21] The Condition (2008) traces the dissolution of a proper New England family when their only daughter is diagnosed with Turner's Syndrome, a chromosomal abnormality that keeps her from going through puberty.[22] In his review of Faith (2011), about a suburban Boston priest accused of molesting a boy in his parish. Washington Post book editor Ron Charles wrote, "Haigh brings a refreshing degree of humanity to a story you think you know well, and in chapters both riveting and profound, she catches the avalanche of guilt this tragedy unleashes in one devout family."[23]
Published just months before the overturning of Roe v. Wade, Mercy Street (2022) focuses on the disparate lives that intersect at an embattled women's clinic in Boston. A rave review by the novelist Richard Russo appeared on the cover of The New York Times Book Review.[24] A reviewer for The San Francisco Examiner wrote, "These characters' story lines intersect in unexpected and moving ways. Haigh deftly walks across the fault line of one of the most divisive issues of our age, peeling back ideology and revealing what all ideology refuses to recognize: an individual's humanity. This in itself is an act of mercy."[25] Mercy Street was named a Best Book of 2022 by The New Yorker,[26] The Washington Post[27] and The Boston Globe.[28] In November 2023, it received the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award.[29]
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