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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: Buson
October Gardening
In the garden this late afternoon, a slow-moving bumblebee sways on a Mexican sunflower blossom tucked beneath a great sunflower leaf, its tender orange spared from frost. With a knife, I cut broccoli. Every bit of sunlight we can get, … Continue reading
Ides of August, Buying Gas
Stopping to buy gas late in the evening, I walk into D&L and immediately stop: the familiar clerk is mopping the floor. It’s so muggy, even long past dark, that he holds the back of his wrist to his sweating … Continue reading
Age 19
Oh, ode to June in all her lovely greenery. Remember being 19-years-old? Remember desire, desire, desire? The summer river. It’s happy to walk across it. My hands with zori sandal. —Buson
Sign of Spring, Hardwick, VT #9
Come what may — more April snowflakes, cold rain, glittery frost in the weeds against the barn — in our corner of Vermont we’ve stepped across the line to spring. Yesterday, in a chilly rain, my daughters and I peered … Continue reading
Hardwick, VT, Sign of Spring #6
…. kid skis on snow and field. Easter afternoon, we skied on snow slushy in open areas, in the woods icy and pine-needle-strewn, pausing to breathe after the vigorous workout. Little streams ran along the trail. My friend remarked on … Continue reading
Monday Morning Good Things
This morning, I step out on the back porch to say, Goodbye, have a nice day to my 12-year-old as she walks to school. I lift my voice a little and add, Feels like March and spring! By way of answering, she raises one hand, … Continue reading
Winter’s Grass-Is-Greener
Driving down the Woodbury gulf in the twilight, staring at the road — snow-crusted, ice packed, with two curving black lines of asphalt worn through winter — I remember all those years of driving mountainous Route 9 in southern Vermont … Continue reading
