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: raising daughters
Ocean Waters at 80 Degrees?
The other night, I drove home in my fossil-fuel burning Toyota, thinking about the library program I’d just attend where a meteorologist kept returning to our “weird weather.” Standing in the back of the Woodbury Town Hall, a righteous old … Continue reading
Gold and Gray
In Vermont, November is knitting season, time to pull out your stash and see what might make a decent hat. This purple paired up with that long-ago blue from a child’s vest? November is also the season of pulling the … Continue reading
Balmy Days (Yet)
This autumn gives us day after day of warmth, and while the days’ length dwindles, the light oddly expands as the branches shake down their leaves, opening up the landscape around our house and on the distant mountains, too. 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
Sissies
Years ago, my friend and I started this saying between the two of us – Are you in your spot? Generally, our given spots were the kitchen sink in those days, which pretty much sums up why we spent so … Continue reading
Mason-Dixon
The summer my nephew was 10, my daughters and I spent a long piece of the summer with his family in Charlottesville, Virginia. We were visiting because of family illness, and so it was me and the kids and a … Continue reading
Lovely Girl
Oh… parenting a teen. More daffodils, please. Devour sunlight. Dig up the first shoots of emerald garlic and fry the savory greens with eggs. Read. Nourish a flourishing sense of humor. When we get into a mood of complaining about … Continue reading
Working
When my girls were little, we played Signs of Spring for weeks, enthusiastically spying the first unfolding daffodil bloom, robins’ beaks clamped around strands of nesting material, tiny dresses flapping on clotheslines. On the evening shift now, my 18-year-old came … Continue reading
Frivolity
My friend of mine mentioned his young baby had begun crying more. Hey, I casually mentioned, babies change. Isn’t Robert Frost’s line the one real piece of family advice – Life goes on – both through sorrow but also embracing sheer curiosity and … Continue reading
