Elayne Clift
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Rockingham Free Public Library | 65 Westminster St | Bellows Falls, VT
Local author Elayne Clift has just published her first novel “Hester’s Daughters,” a dramatic retelling of the American classic “The Scarlet Letter.” Join Clift as she reads from her new book and talks about the characters, the story and an author’s insprations.
Clift’s Hester was born in Boston in 1929. Her “Puritan” community is immigrant Jews. Spirited and humanistic, Hester makes her way in the world much as Nathaniel Hawthorne’s heroine did, bearing an out-of-wedlock child, Pearl. The novel recreates the pivotal events and characters of the classic work, but looks more deeply into the lives of Hester and Pearl through the lens of gender in contemporary America. A new facet in the story is the introduction of Aviva, Pearl’s own child, a bi-racial daughter.
Clift says the idea for the novel came to her while she was at a writer’s retreat. “We were talking about our favorite books and I wondered aloud whatever became of Pearl. Then I got a fortune cookie that said, ‘A childhood book will have new meaning for you.’ That was it!” She worked on the book for the next ten years.
“This is a story of relationships, power, and triumph,” Clift says, “a novel about the new attitude of the full-grown woman, who faces the demands of love [and work] with the high standards of conscious motherhood.”
One critic notes, “Clift captures the spirit of Hester and Pearl, recasting them in a dramatic, compelling and expansive story, cutting across time and culture to excavate connections that bind the hearts of women, no matter the century.”
This program is free & open to the public. Refreshments served.
Elayne Clift lives in Saxtons River, Vt., has several books to her credit, including both short story and poetry collections, and three memoirs. Her journalism has appeared in many national and local publications. She blogs regularly for Women’s Media Center and is a book reviewer for the NY Journal of Books. For more information, please visit www.elayneclift.com
Rockingham Free Public Library
65 Westminster Street
Bellows Falls, VT 05101
802.463.4270 www.rockingham.lib.vt.us
