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
Tag Archives: #art
White Rags or Gulls?
Across the road, I chat with my neighbor in mid-afternoon about the general weirdness of this time. She says it’s like the country has no president now, and in a weird way that seems true, as though in Vermont we’re … Continue reading
Pandemic Pause
When I was a young newlywed, I read Green Mountain Farm by Elliot Merrick — a nonfiction account of a Quaker family. At the very end, Merrick ends with a short section saying that World War II changed their lives, … Continue reading
Tuesday
… one can either choose to live, or not. We have to tell ourselves a story that makes living possible. — Katherine E. Standefer, Lightning Flowers: My Journey to Uncover the Cost of Saving a Life And so we go … Continue reading
The Long Haul
After work, it’s too dark to go running, and I’m home in a foul mood while my daughters cook dinner. While cleaning out a closet that afternoon, they discovered a box of photographs and claimed the photos were evidence there … Continue reading
Half Moon
I step around the barn in the twilight and see the half moon shimmering above the barn’s back corner, like a surprise. I empty the ash bucket and set it on the cement step, waiting for my daughters and our … Continue reading
