Blackbird House
Books | Fiction / General
3.7
(125)
Alice Hoffman
With “incantatory prose” that “sweeps over the reader like a dream,” (Philadelphia Inquirer), Hoffman follows her celebrated bestseller The Probable Future, with an evocative work that traces the lives of the various occupants of an old Massachusetts house over a span of two hundred years.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.From the writer Time has said tells "truths powerful enough to break a reader’s heart” comes a glorious travelogue through time and fate, through loss and love and survival. Welcome to Blackbird House.
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Author
Alice Hoffman
Pages
256
Publisher
Alice Hoffman
Published Date
2005-03-29
ISBN
0345455932 9780345455932
Community ReviewsSee all
"I was expecting this book to be a full length story when I received it but it turned out to be several short stories that interconnected at one point or another. Most of the stories were good but I found that I was not as pleased with this book as I am most of Alice Hoffman's other books. It does have one of my most favorite designed book covers....love the colors and early 20th Century look to it."
"A collection of short stories that span over 200 years and are interwoven and sometimes continuations of the previous stories. They are all centered around the Blackbird House and the residents of the farm seemingly at the edge of the world. The stories are about love, growth, and about sorrow and loss, the farm, the house and the strange white Blackbird bearing witness to it all. I would have given it 4 stars had the ending not felt so abrupt. I wanted at least the last story to have closure. But I guess that’s the point maybe? The stories never end, the just keep unraveling? It just felt unfinished."
"I listened to the audiobook- and I think this is the first time I will go back and listen again. It's actually a compilation of (I think) 11 different short stories, all with one common thread- the house. Some stories entertwine and cross over a bit through generations and then sometimes it's an altogether new family/owner. The characters are all a bit sad really, but there's just enough sweetness drizzled in to keep it from being depressing. <br/> I didn't care for the ending for some reason. Too abrupt I guess. Although when you are listening to an audiobook, unless you're watching the timer, you have no idea how much is left in the story. On one hand it wasn't surprising because most of the stories ended rather abruptly, but you often got a bit of closure in the next story by catching a snippet of what happened to a character. On the other hand, it would have been nice to FINALLY get a nice solid ending after all that. <br/>Overall, I really did enjoy it and I plan to listen again. Her writing is beautiful. There was a line, in one of the later stories but it was about Cora, from the first story, something to the effect of...the water had taken her husband and sons so she turned her back on the ocean and dug her hands into the earth...OH MY HEART! This would be a great book club book. I also loved all of the different narrators. Going to read Practical Magic next!"
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Jacquie Oermann
"I don’t know why I kept putting off listening to this book. I love Alice Hoffman and this book had such gorgeous and vivid prose. I was brought to tears a few times."
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Emma Thi