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: Buddhism
Put a Fork in Winter
On a sunny and breezy Friday afternoon, the Transfer Station Guys assure me the back of winter is broke. Their weatherman — who’s never wrong — told snowmobilers and skiers to put a fork in winter. It’s about done in. I’m on my … Continue reading
Visitor, An Ask
On a sleety day in rural Woodbury, the bright spot in my afternoon is the woman who walks to the library — a mile or so on slushy backroads because she and her partner have no vehicle. The truck died. … Continue reading
Stories
My favorite opening line from a Ray Carver short story reads, “I’ve seen some things.” Winter weary, in mid-February: I’ve heard some things. A colleague shares a nearly-unbelievable story of her marriage breakup, and I think, madness, madness. The story is so … Continue reading
Little Kid Yellow
Two summers back, I bought a gallon of paint for $10. At the local hardware store, the clerk had inadvertently mixed the wrong color and offered it to me. What a score, I thought. The color approximated the hue I … Continue reading
Under the Dentist’s Knife
As I’m finishing a book about, essentially, pain, maybe it’s fitting that I undergo my own particular pain experience. In the oral surgeon’s chair, as he came at my face with a small, extremely sharp blade, he paused for a … Continue reading
Cat Joy
When I returned from a school board meeting last night, so tired I might actually have been sleepwalking, the kids had taken the trusty yardstick, swept out the toy mice from under the couch, and the cats were ecstatic. Our … Continue reading
The Mind of Winter
Poet Wallace Stevens wrote: One must have a mind of winter/To regard the frost and the boughs/Of the pine-trees crusted with snow. In northern Vermont — thus far — the winter has been cold and dark and ice, scant on snow. When the sun … Continue reading
One Day, Otherwise
A few drops of rain graced the very end of our walk yesterday afternoon. Later, our kitchen redolent with baking pies, rain hammered on the roof. I hope all my readers have many, many things to celebrate. Oddly enough, on … Continue reading
First Sledding
In the dusk, children screamed as they sledded down a hill — so screechingly at first I worried they were injured. When I stepped around the garage, though, two children in raggedy snowsuits were laughing at the foot of a … Continue reading
Rain, Sleet, Snow, Silence
Third snow day, and it’s only November. Driving from one side of the state to another, I travel through a landscape of gray — pavement, mountain — flanked by icy trees in that always questionable terrain around Bolton. Then — … Continue reading
