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: wanderlust
Strangers’ Laughter
I step out of our house just after sunset, and a crescent moon hangs over the road — a silent slice of gleaming beauty in a dark blue sky. By then, I’ve been on a school board call for hours, … Continue reading
Sunday, Sun, Reassessing
After a terrible week, my daughter heads to ski with a friend. Because of the pandemic, she doesn’t catch a ride with the friend. Because my daughter is 15, I’m the designated adult — for what that’s worth — in … Continue reading
Black Soil, White Snow
Day whatever it is of the Stay Home order. On a virtual school board meeting that evening, we began asking each other who’s looking out their windows. I’d been staring out mine for a while, at snow falling briskly. Like … Continue reading
Home: Wanderlust On Hold
Like I hope everyone else — I hope — we’re holing up for the long haul in our house, figuring out our world day by day, in utter suspension of any “normalizing” of life. What’s normalcy again? Something we’ll never … Continue reading
Wrong Way Closed
While poor California is burning, Vermont is flooded. Driving to Burlington to meet my older daughter at the airport, my younger and I are suddenly stopped on Route 15. Road closed. I pull into a gas station and run up … Continue reading
Wanderlust, Home
We’re at the Burlington airport at four in the morning, in a rainy darkness, in that discombobulated airport way — where the everyone in town seems to be at the airport and then, outside, it’s just me and my teen … Continue reading
Constellations
11 at night, I’m at the high school, waiting for my daughter to return from a band/amusement park trip. The sun set hours ago, and I grab an extra sweater on the way out. It’s cold, cold enough I’m surprised … Continue reading
Vermont Postcard
A few years ago, an enormous storm dumped gravel on local farmers’ fields and generally wrecked significant agricultural damage. Farmers around here are small, small-scale, no one ever gets adequate insurance compensation, and the storm hurt. I bought this sketch … Continue reading
