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: poetry
Little Cabbages
While spectating my daughter’s soccer game, I surreptitiously watch a little boy dig a small hole in the frost-killed grass. He’s met a new friend, I surmise, another younger sibling, and the two of them make homes for a handful … Continue reading
Scarlet and Gold
On my way to pick up my daughter from soccer practice, I leave early and take a walk behind the community gardens, where the wildness of Woodbury Mountain meets the edge of town. All day, rain has drenched us, and … Continue reading
Coyote Calling
October already, again, the fall has bent around again, and before long, snow will fall again. What will we do? The same things, I suppose, we always do. Boil beans and onions and chilis for soup, keep the house warm, lace … Continue reading
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
Nearly 9th Grade
While the girls swim and jump off the bridge, I read a chapter in a history of Vermont — same old, same old. We’re in the long, slow, cricket-singing days, just before school starts. The garden is jammed full, the … Continue reading
Buried Treasure
I look out the upstairs window where I’m working and see my teen and her friend busily digging a hole where young lilacs are growing along the cemetery fence. They’re planting a half-gallon mason jar — their time capsule — … Continue reading
