Haigh, Jennifer

Jennifer Haigh is an American novelist and short story writer. Her most recent novel, HEAT AND LIGHT, looks at a Pennsylvania town divided by the controversy over fracking, and was named a Best Book of 2016 by The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and NPR. Her earlier novel, FAITH, about a beloved Boston priest accused of a molesting a child in his parish, explores the consequences of this accusation for an entire community. Haigh's critically acclaimed debut novel MRS. KIMBLE won the 2004 PEN/Hemingway Award for first fiction. Later books include the New York Times bestseller THE CONDITION; BAKER TOWERS, winner of the 2006 PEN/L. L. Winship Award for outstanding book by a New England author; and the short story collection NEWS FROM HEAVEN, winner of the Massachusetts Book Award and the PEN New England Award in Fiction. Her books have been published in eighteen languages. Her new novel, MERCY STREET, will be published on February 1, 2022.

One woman's search for the truth after scandal rocks her family, and the explosive family secrets she uncovers, in this complex, moving novel from award-winning author Jennifer Haigh. In Faith, Jennifer Haigh explores the repercussions of one family's history of silence, when a priest's sex scandal forces his family's untold past to surface. Art, Sheila, and Mike are siblings in a large extended Irish-American family from the Boston suburbs. Though their father is a non-believer, their mother is lace curtain Irish-Catholic, having raised her children to keep family secrets just that - secret - in a home where most subjects are taboo. Sheila is concerned when Art, beloved priest leading a major Catholic parish outside Boston, seems to fall off the grid just days before Easter. Then the news breaks that he has been accused of sexual misconduct. The media coverage shatters the community and pits Art's family members against one another, leaving Sheila determined to uncover the truth and -she hopes - clear his name. Determined to help prove Art's innocence, Sheila finds herself locking horns with her younger brother, Mike, who cannot shake the feeling that Art might be guilty. By turns disturbed by what Art might have done and furious at the seemingly unfair accusations, the truth remains elusive for readers in this artfully crafted family drama.