Waiting on Wednesday is hosted at Breaking The Spine. If you read my blog at all you’ll know I can’t wait for this one…
The Dove Keepers by Alice Hoffman (Simon & Schuster, October 2011)
Alice Hoffman’s richest, most ambitious novel ever, a tour de force of imagination and research, set in ancient Israel.
Filed under Meme
She had the feeling that if she went home, she might never get away. She thought of birds caught in nets. There was something inside her, beating against her ribs, urging her to do things she might not otherwise attempt.
She had the strongest desire to get lost.
The Red Garden, Alice Hoffman
When one goes through a bit of a reading slump it’s always a delight to be pulled back into the love of literature by one of your go-to, favorite authors. You know you’ll never be disappointed, and I was not when I picked up Alice Hoffman’s latest release, The Red Garden.
A self-proclaimed love letter to Massachusetts, The Red Garden is a compilation of linked short stories revolving around the town of Blackwell. From the day Blackwell is founded, it becomes a town like no other. Whether the death of a small girl, the planting of an apple orchard, or the fish-like woman who stalks the shores of the Eel River, each story introduces a character we come to know intimately. Each glimpse into their lives is, albeit brief, entirely whole and endearing.
Hoffman’s stories range from the lighthearted and mischievous, to the eerie and sinister. Without straying from her classically magical prose, each tale is mythologically simplistic, yet haunting and sensual. We meet a hunchback who falls in love with the prettiest girl in town. We meet a woman living in solitude, afraid to admit to others her true desires. We meet two brothers, as different as night and day, traveling by foot through the woods with nothing but apple seeds and each other. It became a delight to finish one story and turn the page to the next, wondering what tale Hoffman would come up with.
True to form, as delightful as every full novel I’ve read by her, The Red Garden is classic Hoffman in a fresh package. Though she has written story collections in the past, The Red Garden feels different; it feels like Hoffman truly invested a piece of herself in this one. For skeptics wary of the short story collection, take it not for granted. Hoffman shows us why this art form can be as extraordinary as a full novel. Not to be missed.
5 stars
(I received an advance copy for review from the publisher)
Filed under Book Review
In My Mailbox is hosted by The Story Siren, and Mailbox Monday is hosted at Rose City Reader. It’s been a while since I posted anything, super-duper busy editing away, but I wanted to share my latest mailbox surprise by my favorite author! I’m 50 pages in and LOVING it.
The Red Garden by Alice Hoffman (January 2011)
The Red Garden is a transforming glimpse into small-town America, presenting us with three hundred years of passion, dark secrets, loyalty, and redemption in a web of tales where characters’ lives are intertwined by fate and by their own actions. From the time the town of Blackwell is founded by a brave, young woman from England who has no fear of blizzards or of bears, to the day a young man who runs away to New York City with only his dog for company, the characters in The Red Garden are extraordinary and vivid: a young wounded civil war solider who is saved by a passionate neighbor, a woman who meets a fiercely human historical character, a poet who falls in love with a blind man, a mysterious traveler who comes to town in the year that summer never arrives. At the center of everyone’s life is a mysterious garden where only red plants can grow, and where the truth can be found by those who dare to look. Hoffman once again enchants us as lives are linked, changed, and redeemed. Delightful and compelling, The Red Garden is as unforgettable as it is moving.
Filed under Meme
She was young enough not to see a glass as half empty or half full, but as a beautiful object into which anything might be poured. She whispered a bargain, as though her whispering could make it true.
Skylight Confessions – Alice Hoffman
Every time I pick up an unread Hoffman novel I am amazed by her skill with the written word. The way she can form a sentence, twist it into something ethereal and beautiful, it always leaves me breathless. I always feel cleansed and well-read after a Hoffman novel, as though the books I finished leading up to her works were trivial and here is something of worth to spend my time on.
Following four generations of the Moody family who live in the Glass Slipper in suburban Connecticut, Skylight Confessions begins with Arlyn Singer and John Moody as they meet under strange circumstances and form a bond that will affect their children and their grandchildren to come. Under the glass roof and clear walls of their house, secrets are kept and hidden. Mysterious occurrences are swept under the rug, and lives are forever changed by the decisions of others. Following the Moody children into their separate lives as they’re drawn back to the Glass Slipper, Hoffman tells a truly character driven story, so intent are we upon Arlyn and John, and the residents of the glass house that we easily forget there’s a world beyond them.
Skylight Confessions contains the usual hint of magic that Hoffman is known for, but the writing is a little less sad than the previous works I’ve read by her. Or maybe I’m just accustomed to her tone now. The story of the Moody children is beautiful and touching, and in such a short book it’s amazing that we come to know them as well as we do.
Another remarkable Hoffman with all my favorite trademarks, empathetic with a hint of magical realism. All in all, a fabulous book and another great addition to my library. Highly recommended to those who have not read an Alice Hoffman novel yet.
5 stars
Filed under Book Review
To play along, just answer the following three (3) questions:
What are you currently reading?
By Nightfall by Michael Cunningham (synopsis) and manuscripts for Rozlyn Press.What did you recently finish reading? Nothing since the fairy tales in the new anthology My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me by Kate Bernheimer (Ed). Read a Quicky of the fairy tale by Kelly Link.
What do you think you’ll read next?
The Marriage Artist by Andrew Winer (synopsis).
Waiting on Wednesday is hosted at Breaking The Spine and Wishful Wednesday is hosted at The Bluestocking Guide. I looked through over 300 “coming soon” titles and couldn’t find a single one I wanted other than Alice Hoffman (whose books I will always want, really). I’m getting picky in my old age.
The Red Garden by Alice Hoffman (January 2011)
The Red Garden is a transforming glimpse into small-town America, presenting us with three hundred years of passion, dark secrets, loyalty, and redemption in a web of tales where characters’ lives are intertwined by fate and by their own actions. From the time the town of Blackwell is founded by a brave, young woman from England who has no fear of blizzards or of bears, to the day a young man who runs away to New York City with only his dog for company, the characters in The Red Garden are extraordinary and vivid: a young wounded civil war solider who is saved by a passionate neighbor, a woman who meets a fiercely human historical character, a poet who falls in love with a blind man, a mysterious traveler who comes to town in the year that summer never arrives. At the center of everyone’s life is a mysterious garden where only red plants can grow, and where the truth can be found by those who dare to look. Hoffman once again enchants us as lives are linked, changed, and redeemed. Delightful and compelling, The Red Garden is as unforgettable as it is moving.
Filed under Meme
In My Mailbox is hosted by The Story Siren, and Mailbox Monday is hosted by She Reads and Reads. Today is my first wedding anniversary! Like any good husband, mine got me a few different gifts, but most importantly, books! 
Here’s what I got…
Blackbird House by Alice Hoffman
In a rare and gorgeous departure, beloved novelist Alice Hoffman weaves a web of tales, all set in Blackbird House. This small farm on the outer reaches of Cape Cod is a place that is as bewitching and alive as the characters we meet: Violet, a brilliant girl who is in love with books and with a man destined to betray her; Lysander Wynn, attacked by a halibut as big as a horse, certain that his life is ruined until a boarder wearing red boots arrives to change everything; Maya Cooper, who does not understand the true meaning of the love between her mother and father until it is nearly too late. From the time of the British occupation of Massachusetts to our own modern world, family after family’s lives are inexorably changed, not only by the people they love but by the lives they lead inside Blackbird House.
The Probable Future by Alice Hoffman
The women of the Sparrow family have lived in New England for generations. Each one is born in the month of March and at the age of thirteen each develops an unusual gift. Elinor can smell a life. Her daughter, Jenny, can see other people’s dreams. Granddaughter Stella has just developed the ability to see how other people will die. Ironically, it is their gifts that have kept Elinor and Jenny apart for many years. But as Stella struggles to deal with her disturbing clairvoyance, the unthinkable happens: one of her premonitions lands her father in jail, wrongly accused of murder.
The ordeal leads Stella to her grandmother and to Cake House, the Sparrow’s ancestral home, filled with talismans and fraught with history. Now three generations of Sparrow women must come together to turn Stella’s potential to ruin into the potential to redeem.
The Seduction of Water by Carol Goodman
Iris Greenfeder, ABD (All But Dissertation), feels the “buts” are taking over her life: all but published, all but a professor, all but married. Yet the sudden impulse to write a story about her mother, Katherine Morrissey, leads to a shot at literary success. The piece recounts an eerie Irish fairy tale her mother used to tell her at bedtime—and nestled inside it is the sad story of her death. It captures the attention of her mother’s former literary agent, who is convinced that Katherine wrote one final manuscript before her strange, untimely end in a fire thirty years ago. So Iris goes back to the remote Hotel Equinox in the Catskills, the place where she grew up, to write her mother’s biography and search for the missing manuscript—and there she unravels a haunting mystery, one that holds more secrets than she ever expected. . . .
The Lake of Dead Languages by Carol Goodman
Twenty years ago, Jane Hudson fled the Heart Lake School for Girls in the Adirondacks after a terrible tragedy. The week before her graduation, in that sheltered wonderland, three lives were taken, all victims of suicide. Only Jane was left to carry the burden of a mystery that has stayed hidden in the depths of Heart Lake for more than two decades. Now Jane has returned to the school as a Latin teacher, recently separated and hoping to make a fresh start with her young daughter. But ominous messages from the past dredge up forgotten memories. And young, troubled girls are beginning to die again–as piece by piece the shattering truth slowly floats to the surface. . . .
Can’t WAIT to read these!
Filed under Meme
In My Mailbox is hosted by The Story Siren, and Mailbox Monday is hosted by The Printed Page.
Thanks to Simon & Schuster’s amazing Atria Division and their Galley Alley, I received…
The Thieves of Darkness by Richard Doetsch. This looks to be a series, but one that I can pick up from here. There’s no official synopsis yet, but the author shared this one his website:
While Darkness arrives August 25th, I thought it time to start giving you hints.
It starts with a prison break from Chiron Prison located on a plateau in the middle of an eastern desert.
Michael will face off against an adversary like he has never faced before: Another thief but this one is as dark and ruthless and violent as history has ever known.
Without revealing any of the plot, know that The Thieves of Darkness will carry you from arid deserts, to London’s underworld, from the canals of Amsterdam to the ancient palaces of Istanbul, from Byram Hills, New York to the highest mountain reaches of India.
More to be revealed soon.
Doesn’t that sound intriguing?
I also received my purchases from Barnes & Noble when they had their recent blowout sale. Time to reshuffle the unread shelves, since there’s no way any of these will fit at the moment. Here’s Part I of the B&N box…
The Girls by Lori Lansens. Synopsis from Booklist:
Lansens’ remarkable second novel is told from two viewpoints: that of Rose and that of Ruby Darlen, 29-year-old conjoined twins. Rose and Ruby are about to go down in history as the oldest surviving twins to be joined at the head. A recent medical diagnosis has spurred Rose to write her autobiography, and she encourages Ruby to do the same. Between the two sections, the story of their lives is revealed, beginning with their birth to an unwed teen mother and their adoption by Lovey Darlen, the nurse who was with their mother when she was in labor, and her strong, silent husband, Stash. The girls grow up on the Darlens’ farm in rural Ontario, where Lovey refuses to accept the word of skeptical doctors who doubt the girls will ever be able to walk on their own. There is a great deal of subtlety in Lansens’ narrative, and how the twins reveal the details of their lives–often one will refer to something she is sure the other has already mentioned in her section. But her biggest achievement in the novel is bringing to life these two truly extraordinary characters to such a degree that readers may forget they are reading fiction.
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. From B&N:
Emily Brontë’s only novel, Wuthering Heights remains one of literature’s most disturbing explorations into the dark side of romantic passion. Heathcliff and Cathy believe they’re destined to love each other forever, but when cruelty and snobbery separate them, their untamed emotions literally consume them.
Set amid the wild and stormy Yorkshire moors, Wuthering Heights, an unpolished and devastating epic of childhood playmates who grow into soul mates, is widely regarded as the most original tale of thwarted desire and heartbreak in the English language.
Skylight Confessions by Alice Hoffman.
Writing at the height of her powers, Alice Hoffman conjures three generations of a family haunted by love.
Cool, practical, and deliberate, John is dreamy Arlyn’s polar opposite. Yet the two are drawn powerfully together even when it is clear they are bound to bring each other grief. Their difficult marriage leads them and their children to a house made of glass in the Connecticut countryside, to the avenues of Manhattan, and to the blue waters of Long Island Sound. Glass breaks, love hurts, and families make their own rules. Ultimately, it falls to their grandson, Will, to solve the emotional puzzle of his family and of his own identity.
Filed under Meme
In My Mailbox is hosted by The Story Siren, and Mailbox Monday is hosted by The Printed Page.
My GoodReads copy of Crashers by Dana Haynes finally showed up!
Whenever a plane goes down in the U.S., a “Go Team” made up of experts is assembled by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) to investigate. Those people—each of them a leading expert in a specific area—are known informally as “Crashers.” When a passenger plane, a Vermeer One Eleven, slams into the ground outside Portland, Oregon, “The Crashers” quickly assemble to investigate the cause. Under the leadership of the IIC (Investigator in Charge), Leonard “Tommy” Tomzak—a pathologist who recently quit the NTSB—the team gets to work as fast as possible. Usually the team has months to determine the cause of a crash. But this time it’s different. This time, the plane was brought down deliberately, without leaving a trace, and this was only a trial run. In L. A., Daria Gibron—a former Shin Bet agent, now under the protection of the FBI—spots a group of suspicious-looking men. Missing her former life of action, she attaches herself to them only to learn that, somehow, they were responsible for the plane crash and are preparing for another action. While her FBI handler tries to find her and save her, Daria risks her life to try to get close enough to learn what’s going on and thwart the coming terrorist action. But time is running out and her cover story is running thin.
And when I stopped by a used bookstore to check for a copy of Blackbird House by Alice Hoffman, I stumbled across this instead…
Blue Diary by Alice Hoffman
The courage to face the unthinkable is at the core of this magnificent novel. How do we manage to confront the truths in our lives and find forgiveness in the most unforgiving of circumstances?
When Ethan Ford fails to show up for work on a brilliant summer morning, none of his neighbors would guess that for more than thirteen years, he has been running from his past. His true nature has been locked away, as hidden as his real identity. But sometimes locks spring open, and the devastating truths of Ethan Ford’s history shatter the small-town peace of Monroe, affecting family and friends alike.
Filed under Meme
In case you haven’t already figured it out, you should know that I love Alice Hoffman’s novels, even though I’ve only read three now. Andi over at Estella’s Revenge mentioned that her favorite Hoffman is Blackbird House, which is a collection of interconnected short stories. It’s officially the next Hoffman on my TBR, and my pick for Friday Finds hosted by Should Be Reading.
Blackbird House by Alice Hoffman
In a rare and gorgeous departure, beloved novelist Alice Hoffman weaves a web of tales, all set in Blackbird House. This small farm on the outer reaches of Cape Cod is a place that is as bewitching and alive as the characters we meet: Violet, a brilliant girl who is in love with books and with a man destined to betray her; Lysander Wynn, attacked by a halibut as big as a horse, certain that his life is ruined until a boarder wearing red boots
arrives to change everything; Maya Cooper, who does not understand the true meaning of the love between her mother and father until it is nearly too late. From the time of the British occupation of Massachusetts to our own modern world, family after family’s lives are inexorably changed, not only by the people they love but by the lives they lead inside Blackbird House.These interconnected narratives are as intelligent as they are haunting, as luminous as they are unusual. Inside Blackbird House more than a dozen men and women learn how love transforms us and how it is the one lasting element in our lives. The past both dissipates and remains contained inside the rooms of Blackbird House, where there are terrible secrets, inspired beauty, and, above all else, a spirit of coming home.
Filed under Meme
