HEGLAND, Jean (Alma) 1957(?)-

PERSONAL:

Born c. 1957; married Douglas Fisher, 1984; children: two daughters, one son. Education: Eastern Washington University, M.A. (rhetoric and composition), 1984.

ADDRESSES:

Home—CA. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Random House, 1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019.

CAREER:

Author. Santa Rosa Community College, Santa Rosa, CA, teacher.

WRITINGS:

The Life Within: Celebration of a Pregnancy, Humana Press (Clifton, NJ), 1991.

Into the Forest: A Novel, Calyx Books (Corvallis, OR), 1996.

Windfalls (novel), Atria (New York, NY), 2004.

SIDELIGHTS:

Jean Hegland's first novel, Into the Forest, attracted critical attention for its lyrical writing and powerfully imagined world. The story, which takes place in the near future, follows the lives of two sisters who live with their parents in a remote, forested area. Slowly, civilization begins to collapse, electricity fails, the social infrastructure disintegrates, and the girls' parents die. Left alone, the sisters must turn to the forest to survive.

In an interview with Elisabeth Sherwin on the Davis Community Network Web site, Hegland stated that Into the Forest had been inspired by her house, which is located in northern California on fifty-five acres of second-growth forest. "One night I couldn't sleep," Hegland told Sherwin. "I couldn't get up and wake everyone else, so I stayed in bed and told myself a story." The story eventually evolved to become Into the Forest. Although the novel has been compared with Margaret Atwood's A Handmaid's Tale, Hegland denies writing science fiction or fantasy: "Everything in it is true, it just hasn't happened yet." Hegland does admit, however, that Atwood and Ursula Le Guin are two of her favorite authors.

Reviewers of Into the Forest praised the book's powerful vision of a future dystopia. A reviewer in Publishers Weekly admired the way "the details and vivid writing encourage rereading." Although the reviewer sometimes felt that the lyricism is overdone, Hegland's vision "underscores the vulnerability of lives dependent on technology." In a review for Booklist, Whitney Scott called Into the Forest "an engrossing coming-of-age adventure" and a "mesmerizing first novel."

In a review for Booklist, Meredith Parets described Hegland's second novel, Windfalls, as "powerfully imagined and beautifully written." Two single women in very different circumstances each face an unexpected pregnancy and must decide whether or not to keep the child. Each woman's decision has far-reaching consequences played out in parallel stories that eventually converge. Library Journal reviewer Robin Nesbitt called the book "a powerful, extremely moving tale about motherhood … and the impact we have on one another." A Kirkus Reviews contributor thought that the story is "more about plight than plot" but concluded that Hegland's characters are "deftly rendered portraits."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, July 1996, Whitney Scott, review of Into the Forest, p. 1802; March 1, 2004, Meredith Parets, review of Windfalls, p. 1137.

Kirkus Reviews, February 1, 2004, review of Windfalls, p. 101.

Library Journal, February 15, 2004, Robin Nesbitt, review of Windfalls, p. 160.

Publishers Weekly, May 13, 1995, review of Into the Forest, p. 71; January 26, 2004, review of Wind-falls, p. 227.

Review of Contemporary Fiction, Spring 1997, Sally E. Parry, review of Into the Forest, p. 196.

Women's Review of Books, March 1997, Suzy McKee Charnas, review of Into the Forest, p. 16.

ONLINE

Davis Community Network Web site,http://www.dcn.davis.ca.us/ (July 22, 2004), Elisabeth Sherwin, "Hegland's Overnight Success Took about Five Years" (interview).*