Pink Chimneys: A Novel of Nineteenth Century Maine - Softcover

Knowles, Ardeana Hamlin

4.1

278 ratings by Goodreads

9780884480563: Pink Chimneys: A Novel of Nineteenth Century Maine

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0884480569 ISBN 13: 9780884480563

Publisher: Tilbury House Pub, 2003

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Set in nineteenth century Bangor, Maine, follows midwife Maude as she delivers Elizabeth to sixteen-year-old, unmarried Fanny, who years later hires her daughter as a seamstress to work for the brothel she runs.

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About the Author:

Ardeana Hamlin lives in Hampden, Maine, works in a Bangor bookstore, and is writing her fourth novel. The story of "Pink Chimneys" is based upon an actual Bangor madam, the legendary Fan Jones, whose "Blue House" on Harlow Street was a popular destination for woods-weary loggers during Bangor's boom years.

From Publishers Weekly:

This mild and somewhat predictable first novel, set in 19th century Maine, is the saga of three strong-willed women who, although trapped by the mores of their time, make peace with the injustices of the era and eventually triumph. Maude Richmond is a spirited and independent teenager who wishes to become a physician like her father. Since that profession is closed to women, she becomes a midwife, choosing to tend to the childbirths of "fallen women" in defiance of the dictum that the they are evil incarnate. One of her patients, 16-year-old Fanny Abbot, has been seduced and abandoned. Reluctantly, Fanny gives her newborn daughter to her sister to raise and is set up by a Bangor businessman as madam of his posh house of prostitution, Pink Chimneys. The circle of intertwined relationships closes years later when Elizabeth Emerson, Fanny's daughter, is hired to work at Pink Chimneys as a seamstress. Unfortunately, the characters here are pale feminist stereotypes, second in interest to finely detailed descriptions of the burgeoning and thriving new state of Maine.
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