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: #springinvermont
Dinner Chat
My daughter and I are often eating dinner in the lengthening daylight at the kitchen table, just the two of us with the cats under our feet, and my daughter offering bits of her day — if I listen, and … Continue reading
Monday Morning Good Things
This morning, I step out on the back porch to say, Goodbye, have a nice day to my 12-year-old as she walks to school. I lift my voice a little and add, Feels like March and spring! By way of answering, she raises one hand, … Continue reading
Roaming
My daughter and her friend, walking in a pause of rain yesterday from Memorial Day parade practice to the town library, paused beneath an apple tree along the river. She told me this driving home, before the library was out … Continue reading
No Boundaries
Annie Dillard in The Writing Life has these lines: One of the things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time…. give it, give it all, give it now…. … Continue reading
A Little Bit of Sweetness….
My sixth-grader and her class visited the middle and high school yesterday, dipping in their 12-year-old toes for next year’s migration from the crayon-scented world of elementary school to the locker-walled hallways. Her sister, hanging out in art class, gave … Continue reading
Delight of the Dandelion
This is May’s golden heart, when blooming coltsfoot crosses over with dandelion blossoms. Years ago, when my daughter was four, her preschool was in a white clapboard Unitarian Church on a lake frozen solid white all winter, in summers sparkling … Continue reading
Roaming Kids
I unclogged the kitchen sink yesterday afternoon with a sewer snake and a five-minute tutorial courtesy YouTube. In my childhood home, my dad had a yellow hard-covered book he consulted for his share of plumbing. While the reference method of … Continue reading
Raw Material
My younger daughter lay on the couch all day yesterday with a bad cold; since she was a little girl, her response to sickness or misery has been quiet, a pulling into herself. Her sister rises up and fights. Neither good … Continue reading
Whose Baby Are You?
Searching through my younger daughter’s baby pictures the other day, gathering a handful of images for her sixth-grade graduation ceremony, I sometimes wondered, is this her? Or her sister? Once upon a time, I couldn’t believe parents might confuse their … Continue reading
Lounging on the Lawn of the Loony Bin
When my older daughter was a babe-in-arms and all through her toddlerhood and young childhood, she and I delivered tiny bottles of maple syrup for wedding favors, usually tied up with ribbon or raffia, with a small slip of colored … Continue reading
