Windfalls

Description

It is the 1970s, and in a small town in Indiana, Anna, a young art student, works alone in her darkroom, mesmerised by the images emerging before her. Photography is her passion, her obsession, until one terrible miscalculation Thousands of miles away in California, Cerise, a lonely teenager, battles with puberty. As her body betrays her, growing hair and sprouting breasts, which attract attention, she seeks comfort in the most desperate and risky of ways...Facing the same dilemma, Anna and Cerise make different choices. Choices which shape their lives forever and, many years later, bring them together both now mothers, bound by a common bond. And when their lives intersect each woman emerges stronger, inspired by what she sees in the other, changed by what she learns. Utterly engrossing and profoundly moving, Windfalls explores the very essence and complexity of womanhood, and what it is to be a mother.

Author description

Jean Hegland was born in Washington State, but now lives near Healdsburg, California on 55 acres of second-growth forest with her husband and three children. As well as raising and home-schooling her children she teaches English and Creative Writing at Santa Rosa Junior College, and is currently writing her third novel. Her highly-praised first novel, Into The Forest, was published in 1998.