Customer Reviews

Blue Diary

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(44)
3 star:		(18)
2 star:		(15)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

Alice Hoffman's latest novel is based on the fascinating - though maybe not so novel - premise that someone can seem so good on the outside yet harbor a horrible, dark past. The story about a seemingly wonderful man, good husband and father and community member, who committed a brutal crime 15 years earlier, is well-crafted, though some parts drag on a bit. The ending was not one of the possible pat endings she could have come up, which is a testament to her talents. i read this book in one sitting.

However, there were some loose ends that kept me thinking after I finished the book. How did Ethan get his new identity? and what did he tell Jorie about his past, why he had no family whatsoever, not even an aunt or uncle and no friends from his time growing up. That part to me was unbelievable. Also the parts of the book that were told in Kat's voice were not really believable -- too much maturity and insight from a 12 year old. Very few authors can pull off trying to write like an adolescent, however, so this isn't a huge shortcoming.

I thought the most interesting part of the book was the section that went back to the scene of the crime, and the years preceding it that led Ethan to murder. But it is hard to believe that someone SO selfish, so cruel, so willing and able to use women and discard them, could become such a loving husband. Did he turn to Jorie because she was weak and he thought she would love him no matter what? It makes you wonder whether what he felt for her was truly love, or just more selfishness.

Despite the strained credibility of the book at times, it is still worth reading. The portraits of Jorie and Charlotte are very good. And Hoffman really conveys the love that Jorie feels for Ethan. Another theme that is well-developed is the theme of jealously, and how it is often misplaced -- we think someone else has everything yet in reality their good fortune, like Jorie's, is as fragile as a house of cards that can come crashing down in a second.

In "Blue Diary," Alice Hoffman asks an intriguing question: What would happen if someone you knew and loved, was seen on "America's Most Wanted?" Ethan Ford and his wife Jorie and son Collie have lived a model life in the small Massachusetts town of Monroe, until the day a neighbor sees Ethan's picture on TV and discovers his real name is Byron Bell and he's wanted for the murder of a young girl in Maryland. Soon the sheriff is at Ford's door and the quiet little town of Monroe will never be the same. Can a bad man become good? Or has Ethan/Byron simply been pretending to be a local hero and model father for the past 15 years? Ford's friends and family struggle with these questions in "Blue Diary," which is not a murder mystery (Ford quickly confesses) or courtroom drama (the book ends before the trial even begins), but instead a probe into every day human nature. "Blue Diary" also takes Hoffman's unique narrative style (writing each chapter from a different character's perspective) to a new level, as she tells the story in the voice of at least nine of the novel's main characters. The premise that drives the plot is an intriguing one, but the schizophrenic nature of the book makes it hard to get interested in the story line, or get to know the characters, until you're at least halfway through the story. That having been said, I remain a fan of Hoffman's work and, while "Blue Diary" probably isn't for everyone, and isn't my favorite Hoffman novel (that would be "Here on Earth"), it's another unique and interesting tale from this talented author.

"Blue Diary" is Alice Hoffman's fourteenth novel, so one would think she would know better than to create such cliched and cardboard-cutout characters as the ones that people this story. I love Hoffman's lyrical, and sometimes hyperbolic prose however, so I decided to give "Blue Diary" a chance.

The plot of this book is not bad, but it's nothing to email your friends about, either. After thirteen years of marriage, and the birth of a son, an unsuspecting, but perfect wife, Jorie Ford, is shocked when her perfect husband, Ethan is arrested for the long-ago rape and murder of a teenaged girl. Even more shocking to Jorie is the fact that "Ethan" is not really "Ethan." He is Byron Bell, a sociopathic murderer.

Although I found the plot of "Blue Diary" rather trite, it was the characters that really made me dislike the book. Jorie is simply "too perfect." She is the perfect homemaker, the perfect mother, the perfect gardener. And even all this sweet perfection and outward domestic bliss would have been acceptable if Hoffman had not made Jorie so maddeningly clueless.

Come on! How many wives would be so naive as to not even wonder when their longtime husband had never once revealed even a hint of his life before marriage? Husbands who didn't reveal where they were born, who their families and friends were, where they went to school, etc.? I can tell you one wife who wouldn't bat a perfectly mascared eyelash at all this secrecy...Jorie Ford. It was maddening. I wanted to slap the woman to wake her up from her dreamworld. I have a feeling a slap wouldn't have helped, though. Jorie Ford is a woman who sees the world and everyone in it in terms of black and white. There are the "good guys" and there are the "bad guys." And clearly, she and Ethan have been the "very good guys."

Even more irritating is that fact that Hoffman attempts to couch her treacle in "small-town" warmth and fuzziness. Her omnisicent narrator moves here and there in a haze of clueless wonder that is second only to Jorie's. There is suspense in this storyline, make no mistake about that, the plot is not the problem here, it is the characters, Jorie, in particular.

If Hoffman had written a book in which a character such as Jorie wanted to explore her need for domestic perfection, then this might have actually worked. But even after (finally) realizing she's married a murderer and a liar, Jorie Ford, aka Jorie Bell, feels no such need. She simply accepts the fact that she's perfect and a bad man did a bad thing...to her. She's the wronged victim who takes absolutely no personal responsibility for her lack of perception. It wasn't her fault her husband was so bad, she thinks. It wasn't her fault he was so good at hiding his past from her. Sure. We hear you, Jorie.

The final blow comes when Hoffman, steeped in sentimentality, gives the dead teenager a birthmark at the base of her spine in the shape of a butterfly. I suppose it could have been worse. It could have been shaped like a heart.

Alice Hoffman usually writes more fanciful books and I think she's at her best in that realm. Her prose, even in this dreadful book, is lyrical and poetic and wonderful to read. Pretty prose, however, needs a little something more to back it up. If not a plot, then an original literary device, if not an original literary device, then a fascinating character, etc. Sadly, "Blue Diary" doesn't have any of these things. It's just treacle.

I expected an interesting, unexpected plot, page-turning novel, something the back cover had described... I haven't read any of her other novels, so I thought I'd give this one a try. I was looking forward to the page turning experience. What a disappointment. I turned the pages often in search of a good story. The plot was trivial, the characters one-dimensional, and the flowery prose did not fit with the story.
Honestly, this book read like a well written essay from a high school student. The text was overdone, and it seemed she was reaching to create the book into a "poetic prose" style novel.
The forever-mentioned lilies really killed it for me.
Try another novel, don't waste your time on this book.

The first part of the novel tests the reader's patience with its fairy tale depiction of Ethan Ford and his life with wife,
Jorie. But stick with Alice Hoffman's prose. The seeming perfection is actually an effective setup for what happens after Ethan's past
finally catches up with him. This is the first Alice Hoffman book that I've read, and I'm eager to read more of her
work after finishing "Blue Diary." Once the book began delving into who Ethan really was/is and how his heinous crime
resonated, I was unable to put it down. I wasn't particularly intrigued by some of the supporting characters, especially
Jorie's best friend Charlotte. But overall, "Blue Diary" is a satisfying read that raises interesting questions about the
limits of redemption and forgiveness.

While Alice Hoffman's Blue Diary has many well-crafted descriptive sections, it is a disappointment in many regards. How this work has made an appearance on best seller lists is a tribute to the publisher's marketing department.

It is a work of stick figures and stereotypes: the perfect marriage, the bad marriage; the beautiful sister, the ugly sister; the doting husband, the insensitive husband. If the author expects us to believe that inside every self-centered, arrogant young male there exists an Ozzie Nelson, she has deprived us of any evidence as to how the transition takes place. We need to accept as fact that Ethan (who we learn has committed a murder) can simply cover up his past and blossom into an exemplary husband, father and friend. Perhaps Ms. Hoffman wants us to believe that love is the answer; Ethan is so smitten with the woman he meets and marries - Jorie - that he is transformed overnight. Rather than exploring and developing the theme that Jorie's love is the catalyst for a transformation, we are simply asked to accept it. And, the author disappoints even those who can accept love conquering all; the power of love does not sustain Jorie through Ethan's downfall. Once she learns the truth about Ethan, she abandons him.

And what of this blue diary that was kept by Ethan's victim? We are asked to believe that Ethan - who attempted to destroy his truck and all his identification after committing his crime - has somehow saved the key to the diary of the girl he murdered. Jorie finds the key but we get only the tiniest glimpse of the contents - another disappointment. Juxtaposing the thoughts of the girl whose life was cut short with those of her murderer would have been a far more worthy use of space than introducing various thinly drawn characters that play minor roles in the work.

If Ms. Hoffman wishes to join the ranks of today's outstanding female fiction writers - Anne Tyler, Bobby Ann Mason and others - she must surpass Blue Diary.

A simple phone call made by 12 year old Kat Williams changes the lives and beliefs of an entire town when a devastating secret about Ethan Ford, favorite son and hero, is exposed. Although she has done the right thing, the moral thing, she begins to regret her actions as she watches the waves of change begin to affect everyone around her. Perhaps we've all known a couple whose love seems to be almost ethereal, untouchable. Jorie and Ethan Ford have a love like this. Even after 13 years of marriage, they still worship one another. But when he is arrested for a murder which took place in another state before they met, Jorie's view of life begins to evolve into a harsh reality where the past meets the present.

Hoffman's use of nature to describe emotions continues to work for me. She easily charms and entices us with her descriptions of food and nature to set the mood. Sweet lemonade and chocolate cake and the sound of cicadas and the smell of mimosa. I want to stop what I'm doing and go outside to see if I can experience these things first hand, to see if I can discover something in the darkness of the night that defines my life as easily as she defines the lives of Jorie and Ethan, of Charlotte and Barney, of Kat and Collie, of Rosarie.

There is a certain degree of cynicism within me that wonders if people really would be as supportive of Ethan Ford and his past as those of Monroe, Massachusetts were. But this is a story and it is New England and maybe the years I've spent working in a prison have made me all too realistic (or cynical).

Having said that, I urge you to read BLUE DIARY if you enjoy Alice Hoffman or if you're looking for a new author to explore. She continues to bring us stories of people we wish we knew if we don't already.

In somewhat of a departure from her more mystical and whimsical books, Hoffman has written a novel of love, courage, and the nature of allegiance. We are left to ponder the question of how well we really know the people whom we love; how well we really know anyone. The author causes the reader to explore the origin, nature, quality, and depth of forgiveness and to question what really constitutes, morally and ethically, a "good life".

The book opens on a scene from the good and perfect life of the Fords, Ethan and Jorie. We know it is just too good to last. The make-believe life, the fairy tale, is about to end. Happily-ever-after does not really exist.

When the unthinkable happens and Jorie's husband Ethan is arrested for a long-ago and vicious crime, Jorie must face not only her own fears, but those of their son, Collie. She goes through all the stages associated usually associated with a death: grief, denial, despair, and then hope. For she has experienced a death: the death of all her dreams.

Jorie endures the pity of the townspeople and then the transference of her husband's guilt to her. Never one to question herself, she now questions everything. Despite the allegiance and love of her friends, especially Charlotte, recently diagnosed with breast cancer, Jorie must ultimately face her husband's betrayal on her own. For "night after night, she has slept with a shadow, an imposter formed out of ashes...."

Ethan has lived for years with a terrible secret, but he now knows that "The past stays with a man, sticking to his heels like glue, invisible and heartbreaking and unavoidable, threaded to the future just as surely as day is sewn to night." For he can never escape this past, and no matter how much he has changed, no matter how different he now is, he cannot avoid the consequences of his long-ago actions nor be forgiven for them. Sometimes repentance is just not enough, and having lived a good life does not make atonement for the evil that one has perpetuated in the past.

"Blue" is a word sprinkled throughout the book to describe many things, but the blue diary of the title is an unfinished journal left behind by a murdered girl. Hoffman describes it like this: "The diary is a book of hope that has never been finished, a list of dreams left undone."

This book is lovingly crafted and polished to a fine patina. It is a joy to read a book which shows that so much care was taken to make each and every word important and relevant to the story as a whole.

The residents of Monroe, Massachusetts believe that Ethan Ford is the most dependable and hardest working person in town. The locals consider Ethan so trustworthy, he has his own keys to many of the homes he is remodeling. Besides being an excellent carpenter, Ethan is a volunteer firefighter and a highly regarded unpaid coach. After thirteen years together, he still loves his wife Jorie and their twelve years old child.

One knock on their door ends this perfect world. The police detain Ethan for a murder that occurred before he met Jorie. To add insult to injury, friends who worked along side of Ethan on fire calls read him his rights before arresting him. No one believes that the respectful, revered Ethan could commit this heinous crime, but the evidence that he murdered and raped a teen in Maryland seems overwhelming. The statue begins to fall from its pedestal.

Anyone expecting a glib tie the ribbon in a bow ending can forget it with Alice Hoffman's deep character study, BLUE DIARY. Instead, the story line is an astonishing look at the impact of an ugly crime apparently committed by the big fish on the little fish in that pond. The key to the tale is not whether Ethan raped and killed in a previous life. Instead the plot is so good due to the depth of the secondary and tertiary cast members whose reactions to the growing evidence against the local hero follow the pattern of grieving individuals. Ms. Hoffman goes where few writers have traveled before as she provides an intriguing, well-written portrait of the human condition.

Harriet Klausner

I really enjoy reading Alice Hoffman. Her books, as a whole, combine beautifully written prose with a magical realism that I've seen most often in South American writers. Having said that, in my opinion, Blue Diary is one of her weaker novels, although it is thought-provoking and beautifully written. But, as I said above, Alice Hoffman's mediocre is better than most writer's best.

The plot is simple: Ethan Ford, beloved husband of Jorie Ford, committed an unspeakable act of rape and murder thirteen years earlier, just before he met Jorie. This has been hidden for all these many years, until a neighbor sees an "America's Most Wanted" type television show and realizes that her neighbor, the unimpeachable Ethan Ford -- firefighter, kitten rescuer, soccer coach and town hero -- is really Bryon Bell, a young sociopath who fled after murdering a fifteen year old girl. This is revealed early in the book, and the rest of the book grapples with the question of what happens next. Some of the townspeople stand by Ethan, some do not. But, this is Jorie's story -- not Ethan's story.

I hate spoilers, so I'm not going to discuss how the book ends. I will just say this: Alice Hoffman has written an enjoyable novel that deals with some big issues: the unflinching acceptance of the truth, the boundaries of love, and whether there are some crimes so terrible that nothing that one does after the commission of those crimes matters.