Blackbird House (Hoffman, Alice) (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "IT WAS SAID THAT BOYS SHOULD GO ON their first sea voyage at the age of ten, but surely this notion was never put forth..." (more)
Key Phrases: Billy Griffon, George West, Ruth Blackbird Hill (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Prolific novelist Hoffman (The Probable Future; Blue Diary;etc.) offers 12 lush and lilting interconnected stories, all taking place in the same Cape Cod farmhouse over the course of generations. Built during British colonial days by a man who dies tragically on a final fishing trip, Blackbird House is home, in the following generation, to a man who lost his leg to a giant halibut. In the late 19th century, Blackbird inhabitant Violet Cross has a brief affair with a Harvard scholar who inevitably betrays her; in the story that follows, she pushes her son, Lion West, to Harvard in 1908, which in turn launches him to life—and early death—in England. Lion's orphaned son, Lion West Jr., serves in World War II and meets a German-Jewish woman spirited enough to stand up to his possessive grandmother Violet. Hoffman's symbols are lovingly presented and polished: the 10-year-old boy who drowned with his father in the first story sets free a pet blackbird, who returns, now all white, to live with the boy's mother; in the last two stories, a 10-year-old boy blames a white crow for his mischief, and, a generation later, that boy's grown-up sister meets a 10-year-old boy who makes her reconsider selling Blackbird House. Fire, water, milk, pears, halibut—these, too, play important symbolic and sometimes almost magical roles. This may not be the subtlest of literary devices, but Hoffman's lyrical prose weaves an undeniable spell.
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From School Library Journal

Adult/High School - In this collection of tales, Hoffman takes readers into the lives of the people who lived in Blackbird House from the time of the American Revolution to the present. The house, on a farm on Cape Cod, has a haunting presence throughout the book. In addition to ghost sightings, there are touches of magical realism (a white blackbird, blood-red pears - the color of witchcraft, "crying turnips"). However, it is the characters themselves, their stories and their relationships with others, that are the most compelling. Among them are Violet, a voracious reader, greedy for knowledge and betrayed by the love of her life, whose "fierce love" continues to influence the lives of her son and grandson; Jamie, a boy helping his neighbor deal with the consequences of a secret that everyone has known - and ignored - for years; Emma, a leukemia survivor, wishing to become the person she might have been if she hadn't been so ill as a child. The residents of Blackbird House experience deep sorrow and personal loss, but they also endure due to the power of love. Many of the characters are between the ages of 10 and 30, which will add to the book's appeal for young adults. - Sandy Freund, Richard Byrd Library, Fairfax County, VA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday; First Edition edition (July 20, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385507615
• ISBN-13: 978-0385507615
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.7 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (44 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #427,068 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

47 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A House Like No Other!, August 9, 2004

By	Nancy R. Katz "NancyK18" (NJ) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

On Cape Cod sits a white house surrounded by Massachusetts vegetation and farm land. It could be any New England home, but if you look closely this home is the setting for Alice Hoffman's newest book, Blackbird House.As a long time reader of Alice Hoffman's books, I looked forward to her latest title with much anticipation. And now that I've read this book, I found it to be another one of Alice Hoffman's best books.

Blackbird House is a series of interconnected short stories. While they can surely be read one at a time, if they are read together loosely as a novel they will provide most readers with another of Ms. Hoffman's books steeped in wonderful characterizations and magic realism. Every sense is awakened as one digests her flowing words. We feel her characters joys and losses, revel in her descriptions of nature and animals and hope for a good outcome for her characters lives as they unfold before our eyes. With the house as a backdrop and one of her most endearing characters, Ms. Hoffman provides her readers with pages filled with unusual people, magical places and events which challenge the emotions of the human heart. So entranced was I by some of the passages and stories, I was forced to close the book for a few minutes and take deep breaths before I could go on to read more..

As we read we come to learn of the history of Blackbird House from over 200 years ago. We first meet the builder of the house John Hadley, a fisherman during Revolutionary times who builds the house as a monument to the endearing love he has for his wife. When he goes off to sea with his two young sons, a blackbird, the youngest son's pet accompanies them and returns to the house now totally white after disaster strikes. This blackbird and its other white descendants seem to hover around the house at other times during the tales as if a witness to everything which happens both to the hoseu and the people who occupy it. In another story we meet Lysander who lost his leg to a giant halibut but finds love and courage with a woman thought to be the witch of Truro. In turn we read story after story of succeeding families who inhabit the house. Violet, who is betrayed by her lover, but then learns to love the local boy and gives birth to seven children eventually traveling to England to bring her orphaned grandson home. And then we meet this grandson all grown home who meets a German Jewish survivor in Germany during WWII and bring her home to meet Violet. How these two very different women come to terms with loving the same man provides readers with a wonderful story of love and jealousy. Finally we meet Emma, a 30 year old who rather lost after her divorce returns to her family's vacation home which she inherits from her parents. But of all of the stories I think it was the story India which rally captivated me the most as a young woman learns about the love her parents had for one another in a rather unusual household during the 60's.

At one time almost every Hoffman book I read I considered a favorite. But recently, being a bit more critical, I came up with the following list which includes Fortune's Daughter, Practical Magic, Seventh Heaven, Green Angel and Turtle Moon. Now to this list I add Blackbird House which takes its rightful place along with the other titles mentioned. If you are reading this review I hope it will encourage you to read Blackbird House or at the very least some of the other titles I have loved. As I often say an even so so book by Alice Hoffman is better than most. And while Blackbird is at times sad and overwhelming there is also much joy and lessons to be learned from within the pages of this book.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I love this book....., November 6, 2004

By	Dianne Foster "Di" (USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)

Now, I might be a bit prejudiced because I live with 15 parrots and am a wild-bird watcher, but I find this book wonderful. Reading Alice Hoffman's writing is like gazing through a sun-catcher. As the light moves through the colors, it catches your eye and touches your heart in unexpected ways. Ever since her book PRACTICAL MAGIC, Hoffman has lead this reader into a mystical and magical realm where all things are possible, and although truly sad things happen a heartlift is felt at the end if the tale. Hoffman has a deft touch, neither clobbering the reader with too much explanation, nor failing to inform. What happens to the bird? He isn't always black. Do the lovers get together, why yes, you discover a few pages later when their grandchildren tell their story.

Each of the stories in this little book stands alone, yet all are woven into a fabric which includes the threads of singular lives who within the space of a few pages you come to care about. I have read whole novels and not cared for the protagonist or any of the other characters. How can an author be called anything but magical when she can make you care for many people individually wihtin a few paragraphs?

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars For the Beauty of the Word, August 3, 2004

By	Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Alice Hoffman is a conjurer of prose. She understands human frailty, vulnerability, self-conscious loathing of birth abnormalities, the need for feeling love, and other acts of living. She writes about New England as well as anyone writing today - her pages are filled with visual stimuli that hang so closely to the retina that though they are often repeated (the color red as embodied by pears, berries, blood, leather, etc.), each repetition serves only to magnify the original richness of impulse. BLACKBIRD HOUSE spans 200 odd years of life on Cape Cod, and while many are calling the chapters 'essays' or 'short stories', they seem more like a cohesive novel about the land and the endurance of the sea and time than anything so disjointed as individual stories. Each of the chapters is connected and it is this connection of odd characters and their progeny that propels the reader nonstop from the early days of the colonies to the present. Hoffman creates dark characters: pain, bruise, emotional devastation and fate are woven like a continuing tapestry, passed from generation to generation. The seeds of all the characters, no matter from where they may be speaking (from the Cape, Boston, London, etc) all are firmly planted in the sweet peas, nettles and bramble that surround the sturdy house that makes the title. Here are witching, blackbirds that become white like ghosts, the ocean, and every type of family dysfunctional unit imaginable. BLACKBIRD HOUSE is not unlike the magical realism of our Latin American writers, but with a thoroughly American twist that makes it even more delicious! An excellent book, this!