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
Category Archives: motherhood
Driving Lessons
In the evening, as the dusk moves in, we play hearts on the back porch, my feet wet from watering the garden. It’s dry, with no rain in the forecast but thunderstorms possibly moving in this weekend. After dinner and … Continue reading
Wild Discoveries
Walking through the town woods after dinner, listening to what must be one of the loveliest sounds on the planet — the wood thrush — my younger daughter says quietly, “Cub.” Just ahead, where we were about step into a … Continue reading
New (Furry) Friend
My daughter was waiting on the trampoline when I came home from work the other day, sitting there waiting for me. We’re still in this crazy period where I’m almost always at home, but sometimes I head in. She told … Continue reading
Painting the Kitchen the Color of Cake Batter
In the sub-zero cold, my daughter’s car cranks over after a long hesitation. Start, or not? Oh, February. So much effort. The girls are gone skiing while I’m painting the kitchen. The cats move around from stepladder to drop cloth. Meanwhile, … Continue reading
Birth Day
Here’s the thing about being pregnant: you just don’t know. Forty weeks, give or take a few (generally), is a long time to wonder, who’s this little baby, anyway? When my first daughter was born — after a long labor that eventually terminated … Continue reading
Vermont, Sometime in January
Midwinter. Need I say more? I remember a Vermont winter when I was in my twenties where January was sub-sub-zero. 25 below zero, in what seemed like a cold snap that wouldn’t snap. Not so, this year. Rain, slush, ice. … Continue reading
Three-lined Beauty
On this rainy November early morning, here’s a lovely poem from Bashō. Wrapping the rice cakes with one hand she fingers back her hair
Gold
The day’s few hours of sunlight seemed distinctly February-ish — gold wild apples are still frozen to the tree. November narrows down to the holidays, to that time of Vermont dark. The daughters decide to bake corn muffins — perhaps … Continue reading
My Daughter, My (Former) Younger Self
My daughters dropped me off for a dentist appointment — worse, an oral surgeon — appointment and disappeared to check out a mural in town. I wait. I wait a little more. The appointment’s at the end of the day, and, … Continue reading
In my email inbox this morning, a lovely poem by Raphael Kosek, beginning: My daughter is driving across the continent, eating cheddar in Wisconsin, waking to a cougar’s yellow rasp, sleeping tentless in a corn field…. Last night, with the … Continue reading
