Portland Monthly
The West, Two Ways: An Excerpt from Jenny Forrester’s New Memoir
In Narrow River, Wide Sky, the local writer mines her childhood culture shock in Colorado.
Narrow River – Wide Sky
In the vein of The Liar’s Club and The Glass Castle, Jenny Forrester’s memoir perfectly captures both place and a community situated on the Colorado Plateau between slot canyons and rattlesnakes, where she grew up with her mother and brother in a single-wide trailer proudly displaying an American flag. Forrester’s powerfully eloquent story reveals a rural small town comprising God-fearing Republicans, ranchers, Mormons, and Native Americans. With sensitivity and resilience, Forrester navigates feelings of isolation, an abusive boyfriend, sexual assault, and a failed college attempt to forge a separate identity. As young adults, after their mother’s accidental death, Forrester and her brother are left with an increasingly strained relationship that becomes a microcosm of America’s political landscape. Narrow River, Wide Sky is a breathtaking, determinedly truthful story about one woman’s search for identity within the mythology of family and America itself.
Review from Foreword Reviews!
Forrester doesn’t gloss over the difficult parts of her life, but rather tells stories of how that adversity formed a stronger
individual.
Winter Institute and It Begins!
Rhonda Hughes is the best editor I could ever hope to know. They say to edit is divine. So true. All thanks forever.
Oregonian: 24 NW Books We’re Excited to Read
Jenny … has made a significant impact on Portland literary culture, and it’s exciting to watch her own story gather strength and praise as it prepares to enter the world.
Interview, The Authenticity Experiment
Kate Carroll De Gutes interviewed me, and my answer to authenticity/being authentic had to do with navigating my sensitivity.
Book Signatures
The publisher had a party with some amazing Portland women in publishing. I got a real copy of my book. There’s a limited number of them in the world (galleys for book sellers and review copies for reviewers). So, this one I got to keep is so precious.
