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: hope
Running Icicles
Birds are singing this morning when I step out on the back deck, and walk barefoot to the edge of the covered porch to see the blue layers of mountains and valley, the gray clouds from horizon to horizon, thin … Continue reading
Hallejuleh
Behind a building in Burlington along Lake Champlain, with a ripe scent of eau de sewage, what did I hear in a nearby maple tree? Singing blackbirds! I tossed my laptop and coat in my Toyota, covering the windshield scraper on the … Continue reading
Snippets From the Snowy North
Snow falls on my 13-year-old’s hair as we walk through the falling snow. 13-year-old girls are empirically unable to wear hats. Ski helmets, sure. But hats? Get real. Nonetheless, I ask her to walk with me. Beneath a pine tree, our neighbor’s … Continue reading
A Little Levity
Draw me a purple chicken, a kid asks me at the library — then adds, as he looks intently at me, please. I love the kid world: what adult would take magic markering a chicken so seriously? This might reflect simply … Continue reading
Sacred Spot
At library class yesterday, I’m in one of my places — like canoeing on Calais’s Number 10 Pond or Bandelier National Park in New Mexico — I’m (at least temporarily) where I’m supposed to be. Housed in the original Barre, … Continue reading
Vermont Democracy
Outside the town clerk’s office, a little after 8 last night, I’m talking with an another adult while the kids jump around in what feels like balminess at 14 above zero when I suddenly shout out, Look at the moon! … Continue reading
Reprieve
At the hardware store in town, the woman ringing up my chicken feed asks if I’m going out partying for New Year’s Eve. Are you kidding me? I blurt out. Then I apologize and ask about her plans. I like … Continue reading
