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Hidden View
Hidden View is a short novel set in the Vermont agrarian landscape, a story of Fern Hartshorn, unworldly and unexpectedly pregnant at 19. Marrying an older man she barely knows, Fern begins her adult life on an isolated and hardscrabble farm named Hidden View.
Shortly after the birth of her daughter, the future of the farm is jeopardized by a family dispute over ownership between her husband and his brother, Lucien. Unwillingly, Fern is torn between the two brothers, bound to Hal by marriage, child, and a modicum of economic stability, and to Lucien by companionship and a deepening desire.
This novel embodies the geography of Vermont. The mountainous landscape suffuses the novel with its mark upon characters through spring mud, the lavish profusion of summer, winter’s bitter starkness, and its constant, ineffable beauty. Just as the landscape seasonally transforms, the characters of Hidden View reveal themselves through action and dialogue.
Thus, in a snowstorm, while a young child pleads for a toasted cheese sandwich, Fern struggles with her deteriorating marriage and rising desire for Lucien, struggling at the uniquely human place of how, and why, to choose her course. Lyrically, the language and metaphors arise from the setting, complementing the novel’s integrity.
Hidden View's characters are vivid, written without disdain or cliché, distinctive to the setting of this Vermont farm and its particular family fracas. The listener wants to know what happens to these people in their troubled lives. The ending, while lucid, casts the listener back to the vagaries of life.
Fern writes, “I was so young then, so ripely full of blood and milk and desire and work. I was so young I believed my heart might freeze and thaw and blossom. How little I knew that cycle would repeat over and over and over, that our life, while brief and mortal, is also long and tedious and bound to the constraints of our weak flesh.” Therein lies the tension of Hidden View: the corporal versus the spiritual world, and that in-between of human activity and choice. On a small farm in Vermont, that story unfolds.
Shortly after the birth of her daughter, the future of the farm is jeopardized by a family dispute over ownership between her husband and his brother, Lucien. Unwillingly, Fern is torn between the two brothers, bound to Hal by marriage, child, and a modicum of economic stability, and to Lucien by companionship and a deepening desire.
This novel embodies the geography of Vermont. The mountainous landscape suffuses the novel with its mark upon characters through spring mud, the lavish profusion of summer, winter’s bitter starkness, and its constant, ineffable beauty. Just as the landscape seasonally transforms, the characters of Hidden View reveal themselves through action and dialogue.
Thus, in a snowstorm, while a young child pleads for a toasted cheese sandwich, Fern struggles with her deteriorating marriage and rising desire for Lucien, struggling at the uniquely human place of how, and why, to choose her course. Lyrically, the language and metaphors arise from the setting, complementing the novel’s integrity.
Hidden View's characters are vivid, written without disdain or cliché, distinctive to the setting of this Vermont farm and its particular family fracas. The listener wants to know what happens to these people in their troubled lives. The ending, while lucid, casts the listener back to the vagaries of life.
Fern writes, “I was so young then, so ripely full of blood and milk and desire and work. I was so young I believed my heart might freeze and thaw and blossom. How little I knew that cycle would repeat over and over and over, that our life, while brief and mortal, is also long and tedious and bound to the constraints of our weak flesh.” Therein lies the tension of Hidden View: the corporal versus the spiritual world, and that in-between of human activity and choice. On a small farm in Vermont, that story unfolds.
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First published November 6, 2015
192 people want to read
About the author
Brett Ann Stanciu
4 books11 followersA single mother of two daughters, Brett Ann Stanciu believes in stellar writing, using clotheslines, and eating fresh greens from the garden. Well-versed in the agricultural life, she writes from Vermont.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
October 7, 2017
Ratings (1 to 5)
Writing: 5
Plot: 4
Characters: 4
Emotional impact: 5
Overall rating: 4.5
Writing: 5
Plot: 4
Characters: 4
Emotional impact: 5
Overall rating: 4.5
June 12, 2019
This book is charged with raw emotion. The story of Fern setting out on her own in life relates not only her personal journey but depicts the hardships of rural farm life. Everyone will find a situation and emotion they can relate to. This is not a “poor me” novel, but conveys more of the struggles and triumphs of the family, growth, and both good and bad decisions.
May 27, 2016
See my full review at The Emerald City Book Review. If you're tired of seeing the same books from the same big-name publishers hyped everywhere, and would like to discover some quality under-the-radar fiction that not everyone knows about, I have got something for you. Hidden View by Brett Ann Stanciu is a true hidden gem, a novel with a distinctive and haunting voice that taps into universal, archetypal themes while being grounded in a very particular place.
The voice belongs to Fern, a young woman who became pregnant and married at nineteen, and now finds herself and her young daughter trapped on a failing Vermont hill farm with an increasingly distant and brutal husband. When her husband's brother returns to claim his inheritance, love, fear, desire, and pain mingle explosively.
If this all sounds too depressing and maudlin for words, it isn't -- and that's in large part what impressed me so much about Stanciu's writing. Yes, she unflinchingly portrays the difficult realities of Fern's life, but most of all she makes us feel the presence of Fern herself, the strength of her essential being that endures in the face of hardship and finds joy, wisdom, grace in this most unlikely of places. Through the precious, painful gifts of motherhood, by the cultivation of growing things, in her awe and wonder at the natural world, she grows toward the light and we suffer and grow along with her.
Fern is no saint, and she doesn't always make smart choices, but her story is all the more riveting thereby. Stanciu has shown how modern people in an ancient landscape struggle to make their way against the forces of nature and their own demons, trying to find and save what is of value in themselves and the land. It's a story and a message that deserve to find many readers who will love this brave, piercingly honest novel as much as I do.
The voice belongs to Fern, a young woman who became pregnant and married at nineteen, and now finds herself and her young daughter trapped on a failing Vermont hill farm with an increasingly distant and brutal husband. When her husband's brother returns to claim his inheritance, love, fear, desire, and pain mingle explosively.
If this all sounds too depressing and maudlin for words, it isn't -- and that's in large part what impressed me so much about Stanciu's writing. Yes, she unflinchingly portrays the difficult realities of Fern's life, but most of all she makes us feel the presence of Fern herself, the strength of her essential being that endures in the face of hardship and finds joy, wisdom, grace in this most unlikely of places. Through the precious, painful gifts of motherhood, by the cultivation of growing things, in her awe and wonder at the natural world, she grows toward the light and we suffer and grow along with her.
Fern is no saint, and she doesn't always make smart choices, but her story is all the more riveting thereby. Stanciu has shown how modern people in an ancient landscape struggle to make their way against the forces of nature and their own demons, trying to find and save what is of value in themselves and the land. It's a story and a message that deserve to find many readers who will love this brave, piercingly honest novel as much as I do.
August 23, 2016
I saw this book mentioned once, randomly, on a homesteading blog that I check every once in a while. I requested that my library order it and they did! It was meant to be and I'm so glad I was able to find this book. The writing is lovely, describing the beauty and sorrow of life that is encapsulated so well, and often times so overwhelmingly, on a farm. As we follow Fern through the first few years of life at Hidden View time passes with that incessant drum beat of the seasons that dictates living in the natural world. I don't usually write reviews of books. I read them, rate them, and then am on to the next. But occasionally a book stands out and you know the images it painted will stick with you. This is one such book for me. And since it's from a smaller press and you might not hear about it otherwise, I wanted to pass on my recommendation.
December 4, 2015
This debut novel is beautifully rendered and I read it cover-to-cover in a few days. Stanciu has a poet's eye and it's remarkable how intricately she describes this landscape I am so familiar with.
I can't wait until her next novel is published!
I can't wait until her next novel is published!
February 1, 2016
This is a Goodreads review. Another book I did review that did not show up. Great book.
January 9, 2016
An extraordinary debut novel. I hear she's working on a second book, but in the meantime, I would cheerfully read her shopping list.
Want to read
December 16, 2015I won this book via Goodreads First Reads Giveaway. I received a paperback copy.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews