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“With vivid and richly textured prose, Brett Ann Stanciu offers unsparing portraits of northern New England life well beyond sight of the ski lodges and postcard views. The work the land demands, the blood ties of family to the land, and to each other, the profound solitude that such hard-bitten lives thrusts upon the people, are here in true measure. A moving and evocative tale that will stay with you, Hidden View also provides one of the most compelling and honest rural woman's viewpoint to come along in years. A novel of singular accomplishment.”
– Jeffrey Lent“Early in the book, I was swept by a certainty of truths in Hidden View: that Stanciu knew the bizarre and fragile construction that people's self-deceptions can frame. And that she was telling, out in public, against all the rules, the heartbreaking story of far too many women I've known, at one time or another, who struggled to make their dreams come to reality in situations….
…(In Hidden View) the questions of loyalty to person, commitment to dreams, and betrayal of the helpless are as vivid as the flames in the sugarhouse, as sweet and dangerous as the hot boiling maple sap on its way to becoming valuable syrup.
There's so much truth in this book that at some point, it stops being "fiction" and stands instead as a portrait, layered, complex, and wise. The Vermont that we love, the farms that we treasure, the children we nurture are fully present.”
– Kingdom Books, Beth Kanell"Stanciu is a Vermonter's writer. Anyone who loves the landscape and language of Vermont will be drawn into this story, but her writing holds a universal appeal, too, and rings true with the language and landscape of the human heart and mind as well. The characters in Hidden View are people you're going to think about, and care about, long after the book is read."
– Natalie Kinsey-Warnock, AS LONG AS THERE ARE MOUNTAINS
Author Archives: Brett Ann Stanciu
Cat’s Heart
My daughter’s cat lies on the gray-painted floor at the top of the stairs, just outside her room, looking in. She’s away with friends in Maine. Over email, her sister and I see pictures of her swimming in a lake … Continue reading
Ides of August, Buying Gas
Stopping to buy gas late in the evening, I walk into D&L and immediately stop: the familiar clerk is mopping the floor. It’s so muggy, even long past dark, that he holds the back of his wrist to his sweating … Continue reading
Small Talk
Last evening, an elderly doctor I was introduced to asked me how I survived childhood. For folks who don’t know me, I’m small — I mean, really small. I’m a smidge over 4’8″. Technically, I’m tall for a dwarf. Only as … Continue reading
A Sweeter Version of Macbeth’s Day to Day
On our back deck yesterday, my 19-year-old and I talk about the crickets, how their songs are lengthening and yet quieting at the same time, their strength slowly leaking away with summer. The sunflowers are high in our garden. This … Continue reading
Opening Up
On a muggy afternoon, my daughters and I swim in a cold New Hampshire mountain stream with my brother’s girlfriend. She suggests going to the ocean the following day. I see my younger daughter’s eyes — the quiet girl — … Continue reading
Crickets
My daughter’s pinpointed the difference between her two tiger cats: Acer has an imaginative life keeping him busy — he’s a mighty African lion, a belly-crawling spy, a baby who must be carried up the stairs — while Tar is … Continue reading
Morning Notes
An August Sunday list with the daughter: put up dill pickles can peaches write questions for tomorrow’s interview pick blackberries pluck Japanese beetles from the bean vines and feed this salad to the hens bake a tart in the pan found … Continue reading
