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: autumn
Woodchuck
Geese fly overhead in the dark evening, so near I hear their wings beating. Frost hovers, gathering strength. Yeah, my daughter says, that’s what geese do. They’re out of here! The garden’s gone wild at the end of the season, its … Continue reading
Mid-October Garden
In the garden, fat Brussels sprouts nestle against the stalks. My daughter says two words when she sees them: With bacon. While the light funnels away — every single day, a little less — the remaining flowers in my garden … Continue reading
End of September? Apple Pie Season
Every year in Vermont there’s speculation about the upcoming foliage season — will it be good…. or lousy? While the season infallibly delights — and often astonishes — we view fall foliage very personally, almost as if the quality of its … Continue reading
Autumn Dusk
With no snow, our late autumn Vermont appears like coals burned out, none of our summer’s radiance, our snowy luminosity. This afternoon, not yet four, with the light already leaking away, I lay down in my daughter’s forest lair, dead … Continue reading
November 2015
Vermont Public Radio and my teenager and so many questions, questions: what does this mean? Why did this happen? So many questions and I have no answers, merely: think of this bit of information, and that geography matters, history matters, … Continue reading
Wild Gulls
In Vermont, November is a month of diminished color, the profusion of blooming gardens long since gone the way of frosty death. This afternoon, I stopped by the Hardwick reservoir, drained low. Seagulls crouched in the center, surrounded by shallow … Continue reading
Seeds
After a morning’s work, I stepped out on the balcony and saw wild turkeys slowly picking their way through the frost-bent buckwheat around my garden. These birds are amazingly large, with their red and gum-blue heads vibrant colors against the … Continue reading
Laughter and Rain
The February my older daughter had just turned one, she and I went to a playgroup in Craftsbury, and only a woman I hadn’t met and her one-year-old son showed up. The tykes fought over a red plastic shovel (my … Continue reading
Use What’s At Hand
We are no longer in the gardening season, no longer in the season of growth and warm days, of the earth turning green. October heralds the season of decay, of stillness and quiet, broken not by songbirds but the geese … Continue reading
Shine On
The before-school mornings have now turned intractably toward dark, the air nippy at the bus stop. My older daughter argues against going to school. The truth is, I hated high school, I hated middle school, I hated elementary school, I … Continue reading
