“It’s hard to avoid hyperbole in describing this book. It’s hard to believe that this is Jenny Forrester’s first full length manuscript. Such is the quality of both story and the writing that brings that story to life. Others have described it as a memoir of a certain place, but Narrow River, Wide Sky describes more than any geography (although her ability to render place is genuinely terrific). The “where” of this memoir is really inside “family” and “community” and even “country”. In this rendering, Forrester’s story is universal. I heard the first chapter read by the author over a year ago in Portland. This is a town where you can’t shake a stick without pointing at a writer. It’s a writers town. I promise you that with this first book Jenny Forrester will take her rightful place among the top 1% of the wonderful wordsmiths from here. (Or, anywhere.) I bought four copies. Three for friends. It’s on my kindle. It’s the kind of book that you can read again and again and again and I will. You should too.”
Love to Corie Skolnick, author of Orfan and America’s Most Eligible
“Your beautiful book was my dearest companion all week. I adored it as you immersed me in Colorado because I’ve known all those places since I was in my late 20’s. To read of your childhood there was golden. The small town struggles were very real to me. My high school wasn’t as tiny as yours but it was small and everybody knew you, your family & your business.You captured this perfectly. Church and faith were factors in my growing up as they were in yours,and I found your ability to speak of this was beautifully nuanced. I understood it as the backdrop of your guilt over your emerging sexual self. I felt your longing for belonging and wanting to please your partners and not disappoint your mom, as if it were my own.
And your mom, oh gosh did I fall in love with her! What a brave and proud woman. I was crying out, no, no, no, no, NO when the call came about her cave diving death. I know you let us know up front, you’d be burying her, but I was so fully engaged in the arc of her story and the story of your relationship with her, I wanted her and the two of you to go on and on. I felt her death acutely and suffered your sorrow along side you. What an amazing tribute to her as you hit all your marks telling your story. I lingered over your luscious language and descriptions of vistas I’ll be looking for when I drive out to Colorado this summer.
I’m sending copies to my two dearest girlfriends who live out in Pitkin County, Colorado. I know they will love it, too.”
Love to Chuckie D.
“Poetry in novel form! Heart wrenching memoir and I found myself cheering on the author along with the story and disappointed and furious and crying along with her also. It is amazing! I could not put it down until it was done but it does demand to be read slower as poetry in order to capture the magic of the language in all the visuals. All together fantastic!!!”
Love to Rebecca Smolen