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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: teenagers
Mason-Dixon
The summer my nephew was 10, my daughters and I spent a long piece of the summer with his family in Charlottesville, Virginia. We were visiting because of family illness, and so it was me and the kids and a … Continue reading
Between
Standing in our open kitchen doorway this morning, waiting for coffee to brew, I watched a turkey vulture sweep silently over the barn, wings outstretched, so near I saw its feathertips fluttering in the air currents. Hours before, walking in … Continue reading
Where Are Those Bracelets?
When I was a kid, my aunt from New York City gave my sister and me bracelets she had bought at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s gift shop that had been handmade in Africa with unique and somewhat mysterious beads. … Continue reading
Two Decades Ago
I haven’t lived in a town in what to me is a very long time – over twenty years – and in those twenty years, I went from newly married, to raising two daughters, maple sugaring on a scale that … Continue reading
Long Childhood Summers
In this room is a photo of my daughters I took a few years back, maybe ages 3 and 9, a summertime shot, the girls’ heads tipped together. Both girls smile, radiant. The oldest daughter’s arm is wrapped around her … Continue reading
Teenagers
As a mother of a teenager, I do actually listen to her music, and I’ve noticed it’s pretty much the same old American story: the good times are on their way. Be a little more daring, and the guy will … Continue reading
