“Like Elizabeth Strout, her fellow chronicler of small-town Maine life, Monica Wood imbues her characters with the complexity and humanity of real people. Ernie’s Ark is as true as life.”—Christina Baker Kline, # 1 New York Times bestselling author of Orphan Train
In ten interlinking stories, the town of Abbott Falls, Maine reacts as Ernie Whitten, pipefitter, builds an ark in his backyard. The community itself is struggling to survive as a strike at the local paper mill wears on. Few writers can capture the extraordinary within seemingly ordinary lives as does Monica Wood. Ms. Wood has created an unforgettable tapestry of love, loneliness, and neighbors.
This new edition of Ernie’s Ark: The Abbott Falls Stories includes a never-before published story and a new afterword by the author.
praise for monica wood & Ernie’s Ark
“Exceptional stories. All are connected, yet separately strong, unique, and remindful of who we may be or people we may know… This is an emotional read, a good for the soul sort of book.”
—Bangor Daily News“Monica Wood is a stunning writer.”
—Lily King, New York Times bestselling author of Writers & Lovers“Monica Wood uses delicate strokes to tell so much.”
—Ann Hood, New York Times bestselling author of The Knitting Circle“In this extraordinary book, Monica Wood plumbs the depths of the human soul with a perceptive eye and a generous heart. Ernie’s Ark tells the story of a quixotic quest born of grief and longing and its reverberations throughout a small Maine mill town. As its inhabitants—husbands and wives, parents and children, friends and enemies—take stock of themselves and each other, their relationships deepen and expand in unexpected ways. Each of them carries hidden passions and quiet griefs, long-held resentments and unrequited dreams.” —Christina Baker Kline, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Exiles
“Monica Wood is an often graceful writer [with] an appreciation of tragic lives that still manage to embrace love….” —New York Times Book Review
“Wood illuminates the grace in the average and every day, the miracles that lie within the ordinary life….” —San Francisco Chronicle
“Wood does a remarkable job of illuminating the characters’ inner lives . . . skillfully layering their brief but complex stories with humor, empathy, and melancholy.”—Publishers Weekly
“Wood is able to convey the deepest of emotions in a few quietly devastating sentences.” —Reader’s Digest (UK)
more on Ernie’s Ark
- Monica Wood in conversation with Christina Baker Kline (Video) | Longfellow Books
- Monica Wood in conversation with Jim Nichols (Video) | Portland Public Library