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: Vermont
Falling Ice
In the night, ice slides off our back roof and breaks our porch railing. I discover this in the morning while I’m carrying out the stove ashes, cautiously looking for one of the neighborhood skunks. The broken railing doesn’t even … Continue reading
Sweet Day
All day on my oldest daughter’s birthday, I remember that this was the day I became a mother. The day is imbued with a rosy holiness, transforming the everyday world of mundane things — a laundry basket, a cheese grater, … Continue reading
Finally!
In the midst of surely what will be known in American history as a lousy time, Bernie Sanders inadvertently made knitting cool. When my youngest daughter was a toddler, one winter I cracked open a knitting book my mother had … Continue reading
Talking with Strangers
Yesterday, I was on the phone at work, talking with a woman I had never met who was helping me unravel a work question. She paused suddenly and mentioned that she could hear the governor’s Tuesday press conference on the … Continue reading
Snow, Saturday, Living in History
Saturday morning, we wake to a snowfall — gorgeous fat flakes swirling down — the kind of sparkling snow that miraculously turns the world brand-new and utterly beautiful. In early afternoon when I return from work, the girls have shoveled … Continue reading
Holy/Unholy
A warm Christmas Day rain washes away every bit of snow in our patch of northern Vermont, save for a few ice-hardened and blackened plowed-up ridges. As the dawn drips in with its gray, the landscape appears unfamiliar to me … Continue reading
Instead of Lunch…
On the solstice Monday, I’m standing along a dirt road, bent down, petting a dog. The recent cold snap has broken, and the midday is nearly balmy. Some winters in Vermont are like this: cold and thaw ricochet back and … Continue reading
Dusky December
Vermont December is not the season of picking garden zinnias or gathering wildflowers. December is the season of intentionality: wear a hat and mittens everywhere, dry your boots before the wood stove when you return, drive carefully on the slippery … Continue reading
The Saving Grace of Winter is Beauty
These December days are so cold the air is smoky with a mist that can’t melt. Daylight is scant. Walking up Main Street in Greensboro, my boot heels kicking clumps of road salt, I detour to the public beach, scene … Continue reading
Marvelous May
Vermont May is a fairytale world — brilliant spring flowers, black manure, green grass — and, this year, the strange lurking demon of coronavirus. I’ve lived in New England for most of my life, and yet every year, spring never … Continue reading
