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Articles 151 - 152 of 152

Full-Text Articles in Fiction

The Passion Of Estelle Jordan, Ernest Hebert Jan 1987

The Passion Of Estelle Jordan, Ernest Hebert

Dartmouth Scholarship

Sometimes the characters in Ernest Hebert's Darby Chronicles hew close to real life. When the author was a college student pulling shifts part time at a hospital laundry, he worked alongside a woman in her fifties--unadorned, sweet-natured, and with long gray-black hair that was her pride. Nights, Hebert frequented the beer bar in Keene, New Hampshire, where he encountered a sassy, self-empowered, forty-something bleached blonde who could bamboozle any man she met. Borrowing qualities from these women, Hebert would shape one of his most memorable characters: Estelle, the "witch" of the Jordan clan.

A major character in earlier Darby novels …


A Little More Than Kin, Ernest Hebert Jan 1982

A Little More Than Kin, Ernest Hebert

Dartmouth Scholarship

Initially appearing in Hebert's first Darby Chronicles novel, The Dogs of March, Ollie Jordan and his clan live in shacks behind a huge billboard advertising a Vermont business. Although he's a brooding character with an inquiring, philosophical turn of mind, Ollie has grown up with no education, no mentors, and a serious Freudian hang-up. A family history of poverty, stubborn pride, and a culture that runs contrary to mainstream society have robbed Ollie and his people of opportunity, even hope. They live by a culture of "succor and ascendancy."

When Ollie is evicted from his shacks, he breaks his drinking …