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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: #homeschoolingmama
Hardwick Postcard #3: Snowy Day, Slower Day
In the dark, I open my daughter’s curtain to see snow falling in the streetlamp between our house and the neighbors’, and I wake my daughter as I usually do, talking quietly and setting a purring cat beside her. The … Continue reading
Light
On a late afternoon, I walked out of the Montpelier Library and down the street. The trees along the street were shedding their pale yellow leaves in a balmy, golden light; the sidewalks were busy with children, the afternoon commute … Continue reading
Round and Round
Autumn is my Proust’s cup of tea, recollecting for me all those childhood afternoons I walked home from elementary school, scuffing through knee-piles of fallen leaves, as they crumbled and broke, releasing their rich humusy scent. Each morning, my 12-year-old … Continue reading
Sunday Evening
Every year at at this point in the summer – just about at the end – I have an almost insatiable desire to lie down and take a nap. Between work, kids home from school, and trying to cram in … Continue reading
Strong Wings
My neighbor stops by while I’m weeding my kale seedlings, asking what’s this? and this? and then stands where mulched blueberry plants edge up against a wild spread of field, heading down the back hill. Bind weed, ripped relentlessly from my garden … Continue reading
Growing Girls
Not that many years ago, the enormous trunk of my old Volvo held a stash of gritty plastic buckets and shovels all summer, tucked to one side, opposite spare oil quarts and a yellow jug of coolant: well-used childhood possessions. … Continue reading
