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Alice Hoffman
INCANTATION
Author: Alice Hoffman
Published: 2006
Genre: Historical Novel
Cover: Paperback
Pages: 166
Review: 2016
“Incantation”, by Alice Hoffman, is not only a remarkable historical novel of the Spanish Inquisition, but is also an exquisite tale of love and betrayal.
In 1480’s Spain, Estrella de Madrigal, a sixteen year old girl, resides with her family in the village of Encaleflora. Estrella’s friend, Catalina, lives next door. The girls grow up together from infancy, are best friends, and share their secret hopes and dreams. Estrella loves her family, her home, her familiar town and her little pet pig who sometimes sleeps in her bed. Abra, Estrella’s mother, an artist in weaving and dying cloth, teaches Estrella about plants, flowers, and foliage.
One afternoon, on a visit to town, Estrella and Catalina witness an elderly, Jewish man beaten, his forbidden books burned in the square. As the girls behold the spectacle, Estrella notices her best friend, along with the crowd, enjoys the scene.
Catalina falls in love with Andres, her cousin, who works her family’s farm; she intends to marry him. He, however, casts his eye on Estrella.
The hatred of Jews spreads as the Inquisition takes hold; there is a promise of wealth to those who turn in the Marranos, the Jewish converts to Christianity.
Comments:
Lyrical and poetic, Hoffman’s stunning historical novel is the recipient of nine awards, including the Massachusetts Book Award 2008, Best Book of the Year by Publishers Weekly and an ALA Best Book for Young Adults 2007. Highly recommended.
The PROBABLE
FUTURE
Author: Alice Hoffman
Published: 2004
Genre: Novel
Cover: E-Book
Pages: 352
Review:
Women possessing spiritual powers dominate Alice Hoffman’s novel, “The Probable Future”. The imaginary tale, filled with folklore, centers on the Sparrow family of women, primarily Elinor (grandmother), Jenny (mother), and Stella (daughter), the difficult relationships between the three women and their choices in love and marriage. The Sparrow women descend from a long line of women, beginning with the American Revolution and each bear a different, special gift, such as the ability to the see dreams of another, to recognize lies, to see the future, to predict death. As each Sparrow girl turns thirteen, her powers appear.
Jenny Avery, having married Will Avery, a man her mother, Elinor, despised, chose not to speak with her mother for many years. Upon Jenny’s daughter, Stella’s, thirteenth birthday, Stella suddenly realizes she has abilities to see things she which previously could not. After a disturbing volley of insights, due to her new powers, Stella makes a request of her father, which inadvertently sets into motion, a chain of events that will effectively change all of their lives.\
Amid colorful imagery and descriptive characters, Hoffman offers the message that the power of love for family transcends all else and rules over all. The author imparts the theme that what is believed may not always be what is, that people are interconnected and that one has control, though limited, over his domain.
ILLUMINATION
NIGHT
Author: Alice Hoffman
Published: 1987/2004
Genre: Novel
Cover: E-Book
Pages: 276
Review:
Descriptive and expressive, “Illumination Night”, reveals the passions, fallibilities and sensitivities of a varied cast of characters, each struggling to cope with their own identities, the effects of past influences and their hopes and dreams for the future. The story takes place in present day on Martha’s Vineyard, in the small town of Chilmark.
The elderly, Elizabeth Remy copes with the complications of old age while she ruminates over her childhood, and that of her grown children’s lives. Vonny and Andres raise their young son who suffers from an abnormally small stature. Trapped by fears and anxiety attacks, Vonny resents what she perceives as Andres withdrawal. Eddie, the Giant, an unwanted child, came to live with his grandfather years before. He finds solace away from people and tends to the garden on the farm. Teenaged Jody, lovely, wild and sullen, sent to live with her grandmother, Elizabeth, sets out on an unexpected path of discovery. Jody, both selfish and kind, will create circumstances which will come to effect all of their lives.
Beautifully written, Hoffman vividly portrays , the fears, the love, the anger, the sadness, and the expectations of colorful, memorable characters struggling for a place in life.
Illumination Night refers to the celebration once a year in Trinity Park, where scores of Japanese lanterns are lit. Illumination also refers to experiences, consequences and hope. Recommended.
THE
STORY
SISTERS
Author: Alice Hoffman
Published: 2009
Genre: Novel
Cover: E-Book
Pages: 338
Review:
Poetic and elegant, artistic and lyrical, “The Story Sisters”, renders a gorgeous tale of three sisters, Elv, Meg and Claire Story. The girls, unusually close, willingly share aspects of their lives, even a secret language no one else can understand. Annie, recently divorced from their father, loves her girls and teaches them the beauty of tall tales along with the wonders of nature in raising a garden filled with shades of color.
The sisters, bound by their secrets, tolerate little intrusion into their circle of devotion. However, after a horrific event strikes one of the girls, the closed circle begins to break. As Elv descends on an unstoppable path, nothing of which her mother or sisters can end, Meg turns away which Elv perceives as betrayal; each of the two older sisters vies to maneuver Claire to her side. Guilt fills the hearts of the sisters as they each try to cope with the losses dealt them.
Rich golden sunsets, gatherings, family celebrations, delicious delicacies, textured dresses of ribbon and lace, sensitive, passionate scenes of desire, longing, anger, grief and fear. “The Story Sisters”, speaks to the love of family, to true love, to the love of life, and to possibilities. Highly Recommended.
The Dovekeepers
Author: Alice Hoffman
Published: 2011
Genre: Historical Novel
Cover: Paperback
Pages: 501
Review:
Six women depict Hoffman’s long and ambitious novel which retells the tragic event of the siege and defeat of Masada in 70 to 73 CE. The women: Yael, rejected by her ruthless father; Revka, the grandmother of two boys who witnessed the murder of their mother; Shirah, a medicine woman and her two daughters, Aziza, a warrior and Nahara, the younger sister; and Channa, the barren wife of Ben Eleazar, the leader of Masada.
The novel, told in sections, reveals the story of each heroine and her journey to Masada. The women share their tragedies, disappointments, and secrets as they care for the dovecotes, always aware of the loss of Jerusalem, of Roman brutality and of the catastrophe that awaits them all.
The characters become difficult to distinguish between, the novel drones with repetitive description, spells, magic, and prayers to Ashtoreth that Jews (Israelites), left behind centuries before.
Whether or not two women and five children escaped death at Masada by surrender is unclear, however known, is that when the Romans entered the palace on Masada, everyone was dead, all 960 men, women and children, preferred death to slavery under the Romans.
The MUSEUM of
Extraordinary
Things
Author: Alice Hoffman
Published: 2014
Genre: Historical Novel
Cover: E-Book
Pages: 381
Review:
Alice Hoffman creates a fantastical tale of two distinct, eventful, intersecting stories. The novel, set between the years of 1890 and 1912 is a tribute to her two grandfathers, Chaim Klurfeld and Michael Hoffman, is based on historic events, and engages historic personages. Hoffman expounds on the universal truth that one sees only what one chooses to see regarding persons or circumstances.
Professor Sardie’s museum, a place of masterful deception, remains the only home Coralie Sardie has ever known and views the inhabitants therein, not as freaks, but as living wonders.
Ezekiel Cohen, a young Jewish boy, escapes the murderous pogroms in the Ukraine in the 1890’s. Ezekiel and his father leave behind their burning village, and eventually make their way to New York.
Coralie Sardie, raised and loved by her housekeeper, Maureen, is abused by her father who keeps her near prisoner and forces her to perform to support his livelihood in The Museum of Extraordinary Things.
Ezekiel rejects the life his father offers, the life of a tailor living in poverty sewing in sweatshops for industrialists who care nothing for their impoverished employees they use as slave labor. Ezekiel finds employment with a secular Jew who teaches him detective skills and Eddie becomes the finder of lost things. Eddie later learns the love of art from photography. After the Triangle Shirtwaist sweatshop fire of March, 1911, in which 146 garment workers were trapped and killed, Eddie is sought out to find a young woman who vanished.
Full of desire for a life of her own, Coralie tires of her father’s demands and unseemly work he forces upon her. After her path unexpectedly crosses with that of a young man, her fervor for love and freedom ignites.
Images abound of Brooklyn, the Boardwalk, Dreamland, Central Park and the rich and powerful whose dominate displays of magnificent wealth laid not far from abject poverty. Though the Industrial Revolution promoted great social disparity, in its wake laid the advent of social reform.
An extraordinary and intelligent work, Hoffman’s characters contend with grief, fear, sorrow, regret, rage and love. Beauty lies in the heart of he who offers love, a place where extraordinary beings find acceptance in a hostile world. Suspenseful and picturesque, bound by a unique cast, Hoffman offers a lavish tale of desire, passion and love.
THE MARRIAGE of OPPOSITES
Author: Alice Hoffman
Published: 2015
Genre: Novel
Cover: E-Book
Pages: 384
Review:
Haint blue, vermillion, violet, golden hued skies, red frangipani flowers, spicy Caribbean dishes, luscious apple desserts and coconut cake, St Thomas in the heat of summer, rainstorms that beat against windows and the tale of two young girls who only wish to follow their dreams.
Hoffman’s beautiful and passionate story opens with Rachel’s childhood during the year, 1807, and tells of the animosity she held towards her mother, of the love she held for her father, and of her friendship with Jestine, the daughter of her beloved housekeeper. Born into the Jewish Community of St Thomas, Rachel Pomie follows the rules laid for her by family and heritage despite her own dreams. Rachel enters into marriage with a widower with children, a man whom she does not love but carries with her, the prediction from her beloved housekeeper, that one day she will find love.
Hoffman’s novel depicts the life of Rachel Pomie, her husband Frederick, and their son, the celebrated artist, Camille Pissario. Hoffman writes of both real and fictitious characters, and reveals their personalities from different angles. The characters are sympathetic, the story presented in the voices of Rachel and Camille, the imagery beautiful, the historic setting describing architecture, dress and the limitations forced upon women and people of color, authentic, and the plot, fast moving.
SEVENTH
HEAVEN
Author: Alice Hoffman
Published: 2014
Genre: Novel
Cover: E-Book
Pages: 276
Review:
The beautiful, descriptive novel portrays the lives of different families who reside in a middleclass neighborhood, during 1959 and 1960. Hoffman’s eloquently written book speaks to the effects of prejudice and abuse.
After an attractive divorcee, with two young children, moves into a conventional, Long Island, NY community, attitudes in the neighborhood begin to shift. The housewives, who curl their hair, keep spotless kitchens and serve dinners of three course meals, gossip about the young woman’s arrival, her fashionable style, her unkempt house, and her job outside the home. However, the women soon begin to sense that their immaculate homes, their well-raised children and their daily routines are not as perfect as they once believed. Some even desire change.
The author, a master storyteller, weaves together colorful tales of parents, teens, and lovers, bound in hope, desire who learn that change, is possible.
FAITHFUL
Author: Alice Hoffman
Published: 2016
Genre: Novel
Cover: E-Book
Pages: 272
The beautifully written tale follows the emotional journey of a young woman who, after years of struggle, finds her way to redemption. After a tragic accident claims the young woman’s friend, guilt holds her on a path of self-destruction. It is only after she witnesses the suffering of others to be as great as her own, that she turns, examines her past, and enters onto a long road of eventual understanding and forgiveness of herself and others.
The novel, lyrical and descriptive, contains scenes of graphic violence as well as sensitive scenes of compassion and beauty. Hoffman’s depth of description projects different views of the characters. The story centers on the impact of guilt, and the difference between love and devotion.