My Book
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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
Home
Nearly two years ago we moved into our house — from the house where my daughters had lived their whole lives. Now, two years in, this new-to-us 100-year-old house, the house has morphed into home, with a particular shade of … Continue reading
Birthing Day
14 years ago I walked down to our sugarhouse in the early morning and leaned against the doors, a piece of me longing to remain there, static, still, until eternity. We never locked anything in those days. I was there … Continue reading
The Daughters’ Truths
My nearly 14-year-old daughter plays country music in the car, edgily looking at me from the side of her eyes. The girls’ father sends them a text that he honors their truths. What’s anyone’s truth, anyway, I wonder, as I … Continue reading
Déjà Vu Hiking and a Warbler
In Plainfield, Vermont, my daughter and I start up a wide hiking road, after a discussion about why I so frequently fail to read directions — and yet, as I pointed out, I generally arrive where I’ve planned to go. This … Continue reading
Spring Nourishment
The two pear trees beside our house had failure to thrive when we moved in — more stick than tree. These trees are some of my silent, longer-term projects, feeding them manure and attention. Substitute veggies and sausage for manure, and … Continue reading
This Annual Fête
When I was just out of graduate school, I taught middle school kids for two years in a program where another tutor rubbed me wrong. She was forty and supremely confident; she and her husband had made what was likely … Continue reading
Lying on the Grass…
After a less-than-harmonious game of croquet, I lie back on the grass. Overhead, a rainbow. All this day, toiling away at things that may or may not matter…. and in this pause, a rainbow? Makes me wonder what else I … Continue reading
