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: #signsofspring
Wildlife
How many weeks are we into the Stay Home order? Thursday, I let my daughter cut my hair in the kitchen. Delighted, she made her first snip in the back and said, Whoops. What does it matter, anyway? It’s just … Continue reading
This Moment
April 1. 19 years ago we had a such a large snowstorm that we had to carry our 2-year-old daughter outside. The snow was too deep for her to walk until we had shoveled paths from doors to driveway to … Continue reading
Put a Fork in Winter
On a sunny and breezy Friday afternoon, the Transfer Station Guys assure me the back of winter is broke. Their weatherman — who’s never wrong — told snowmobilers and skiers to put a fork in winter. It’s about done in. I’m on my … Continue reading
Closing February
We wake to rain, the sound more reminiscent of March than April in Vermont, but not unheard of. So it begins: this back and forth marching to spring, freeze, thaw: put that on repeat. My little cat sits at the … Continue reading
Oh Goddess, This Way…
On this spongy, springy April day, may Fortuna smile a little more warmly on northern Vermont….. With good reason, the ancients revered the fearsome goddess Fortuna, out of a sense that the sovereign powers of this world were ultimately capricious. — Kyle … 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
