Jennifer Haigh Books In Order

Publication Order of Bakerton Stories Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Publication Order of Collections

Publication Order of Inheritance Collection Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

Jennifer Haigh is a literary fiction author that is best known for the “Bakerton Stories.”

The author was born in the small town of Barnesboro Pennsylvania in 1968.

Growing up in a small-town setting taught her to see the interconnectedness of people and was very good training for a career as a fiction author.
She also had the fortune of being born to school teachers who had an intimate knowledge of the community.

Jennifer’s parents also encouraged her to read which was very strange since the community did not have a reading culture.
Haigh thus came to love reading from seeing her parents reading and she followed suit to become a good reader herself.

In 1990, she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in French and then got her Master of Fine Arts degree from the Iowa Writers Workshop.

Between getting her bachelor’s and master’s, she worked as an editor at “Self Magazine” and it was during this time that she began writing fiction.
After publishing her novels in several magazines such as “Cosmopolitan,” “Good Housekeeping,” and “Men’s Health,” she quit to become a full-time author.
She published “Mrs. Kimble,” her debut fiction work in 2003.

Even though Jennifer Haigh began writing while she was an editor, her road toward becoming a fiction author really began while she was at Dickinson College.
She loved studying at Dickinson where she was actively involved in writing plays and acting in theatre productions.

However, it was not until she was in her senior year when she attended a workshop by Robert Olmstead that her perspective on writing began to crystallize.
Jennifer found the man intimidating and rigorous but he taught her the difference between bad sentences and good sentences.
At that time, she was dreaming of attending the Iowa Writers’ Workshop but Olmstead did not believe she was ready.

The professor told her to live more, read more and write more before he would provide a recommendation.

Nonetheless, it was a remarkable time studying at Iowa as she studied with some great writers such as Ethan Canin, Marilynne Robinson, James Alan McPherson, and Frank Conroy.
Ultimately, it would take a decade of living, reading, and writing before she was ready to publish.

As for her writing chops, Jennifer Haigh has said it comes from the fact that she has always written. However, when she turned thirty she suddenly got a sharper sense of purpose.
She made the decision that it was time to cast off the thought of always being a promising young author so that she could stop being pathetic and comical.

She knew what she needed to do was fail fast so that she could decide if writing was for her or if not she could find something else to do.

Since Jennifer had grown up at a time when mines were beginning to fail in her northern Appalachian mining town, she thought that it would make a good story.
Once she published “Mrs. Kimble” in 2003, she would become a bestselling author and would win several prestigious awards and fellowships.

She has won the PEN New England Award, the Massachusetts Book Award, and the Hemingway/PEN Award.

She has also been awarded fellowships by the Guggenheim Foundation, the James Michener Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
She also teaches the creative writing graduate program at Boston University.

Jennifer Haigh’s novel “Baker Towers” is an interesting work set in the Pennsylvanian town of Bakerton.

At the opening of the novel, the author recounts the death of the patriarch of the Novak family in 1944.

She also chronicles the events that followed up to the 1970s when the town began experiencing a terminal decline.

The author follows the entire Novak family over decades as she tells of how drastic changes in America impact the small town and the people that live in it.
The Novak family has five kids that include the youngest Lucy and the eldest who is George. When they are first introduced George is a soldier in the American military while Lucy is just an infant.
The siblings have very different and unique voices and she shines the light on each character and how they react to the happenings.

Haigh brings to life the many different aspects of life in Bakerton.

From the wedding that incorporates old world elements, factory work, and its drudgery, dances that summon the Kaaba in Mecca, religious and ethnic divisions, from adult desires to young love.

“News from Heaven” by Jennifer Haigh heads back to Bakerton as the author finished some unfinished stories and also brings back several characters.

This work is all about secrets, loneliness, longing, and needing to flee from the confines of responsibility and small-town life but also living with the choices one has made.

At some points, the work is also about how homes can often have a very strong pull on our hearts. Many of the stories in the collection are full of yearnings some of which are fulfilled but many are not.
There is also a lot of disappointment as some dark secrets are revealed sometimes resulting in some dark effects. These are stories about changes in the author’s characters and in the world.
Similar to the debut novel of the “Bakerton Stories,” much of the action is set in the same small town with a few forays just beyond.

Coming with ten stories this is a collection that will make you feel. As such, there are moments of glorious possibility and freedom and moments of awakening, even as the town goes through a phase of sooty decline.

Jennifer Haigh’s novel “Heat & Light” is once again set in the small mining town of Pennsylvania. It had once been known for its coal but now that it is on its last legs businesses are dying and many have left.
But then something strange happens as droves of natural gas companies arrive in town and begin offering residents an opportunity as long as they are willing to sign on the dotted line.

They are to be paid a lot of money to allow the companies to drill for natural gas on their land. In this work the author tells of fossil fuels, fracking, and the demand for cheaper energy.
Haigh shows the human cost of fracking as she showcases the greed of companies that do not care for the environment as they seek to make money.

She refers to actual places in Wyoming and Colorado which have been cracked out by fracking resulting in horrific consequences and devastation.