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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
Where We Are Now
Winter socked us in early this year, the old sheet I used for covering the remaining mesclun greens still draped over the garden fence, nailed down to the earth by snow. Preparing to read Mary Azarian’s Snowflake Bentley book to the … Continue reading
See Our Territory
Small town living isn’t always so saccharine sweet — I’m no great fan of Norman Rockwell. At soccer games, you’ll meet the parents of the child who slighted your own. Argue at school board meetings, and you’ll discover one of … Continue reading
Launching, Laughing (and Learning)
Stronger than espresso, spring roars into Vermont this Sunday afternoon. Busy, busy, those singing robins building their nests. Busy me, emptying ash buckets and raising mud-soaked pallets from a wood pile burned to cinders back in January. But it’s the … Continue reading
And A Little More Tension All Around for Everyone?
A recent unpleasantness with my eye meant a seat in the opthamologist’s chair, where I was reassured to hear at least I had good eye pressure going for me. I mean, that’s something. In the garden later, plucking a drooping and dying … Continue reading
Teenagers
As a mother of a teenager, I do actually listen to her music, and I’ve noticed it’s pretty much the same old American story: the good times are on their way. Be a little more daring, and the guy will … Continue reading
Flowers of All Sizes
My daughter picked a piece of a dill flower in the garden today, then noticed her sprig was a miniature version of the whole. Curiously inspecting, she saw the symmetry reflected again in a smaller blossom-within-a-blossom. For the longest time, … Continue reading
The Body Doesn’t Lie…
…. a friend of mine told me in graduate school. She had suffered trauma as a young child, and, as an adult, found her body retained that trauma – silently all those years, as if in a repository. This afternoon, … Continue reading
