Practical Magic [Hardcover]

Alice Hoffman (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: MacMillan (1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0333648250
• ISBN-13: 978-0333648254
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (227 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,894,990 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Alice Hoffman was born in New York City on March 16, 1952 and grew up on Long Island. After graduating from high school in 1969, she attended Adelphi University, from which she received a BA, and then received a Mirrellees Fellowship to the Stanford University Creative Writing Center, which she attended in 1973 and 74, receiving an MA in creative writing. She currently lives in Boston and New York.

Hoffman's first novel, Property Of, was written at the age of twenty-one, while she was studying at Stanford, and published shortly thereafter by Farrar Straus and Giroux. She credits her mentor, professor and writer Albert J. Guerard, and his wife, the writer Maclin Bocock Guerard, for helping her to publish her first short story in the magazine Fiction. Editor Ted Solotaroff then contacted her to ask if she had a novel, at which point she quickly began to write what was to become Property Of, a section of which was published in Mr. Solotaroff's magazine, American Review.

Since that remarkable beginning, Alice Hoffman has become one of our most distinguished novelists. She has published a total of eighteen novels, two books of short fiction, and eight books for children and young adults. Her novel, Here on Earth, an Oprah Book Club choice, was a modern reworking of some of the themes of Emily Bronte's masterpiece Wuthering Heights. Practical Magic was made into a Warner film starring Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman. Her novel, At Risk, which concerns a family dealing with AIDS, can be found on the reading lists of many universities, colleges and secondary schools. Her advance from Local Girls, a collection of inter-related fictions about love and loss on Long Island, was donated to help create the Hoffman (Women's Cancer) Center at Mt. Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, MA. Blackbird House is a book of stories centering around an old farm on Cape Cod. Hoffman's recent books include Aquamarine and Indigo, novels for pre-teens, and The New York Times bestsellers The River King, Blue Diary, The Probable Future, and The Ice Queen. Green Angel, a post-apocalyptic fairy tale about loss and love, was published by Scholastic and The Foretelling, a book about an Amazon girl in the Bronze Age, was published by Little Brown. In 2007 Little Brown published the teen novel Incantation, a story about hidden Jews during the Spanish Inquisition, which Publishers Weekly has chosen as one of the best books of the year. In January 2007, Skylight Confessions, a novel about one family's secret history, was released on the 30th anniversary of the publication of Her first novel. Her most recent novel is The Story Sisters (2009), published by Shaye Areheart Books.

Hoffman's work has been published in more than twenty translations and more than one hundred foreign editions. Her novels have received mention as notable books of the year by The New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, The Los Angeles Times, Library Journal, and People Magazine. She has also worked as a screenwriter and is the author of the original screenplay "Independence Day" a film starring Kathleen Quinlan and Diane Wiest. Her short fiction and non-fiction have appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Globe Magazine, Kenyon Review, Redbook, Architectural Digest, Gourmet, Self, and other magazines. Her teen novel Aquamarine was recently made into a film starring Emma Roberts.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

65 of 69 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Completely different from the movie - beautifully written, May 31, 2004

By 

Mary Chrapliwy (NJ, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Practical Magic (Paperback)

The movie version of this story is one of the most fun, exhilerating movies - a favorite in this household. This book bears very little relation to the movie. The only similarities are that the main characters exist as they do in the movie, but they don't live with the aunts and magic is not quite the focus as it was in the movie.

Now, that said ...

This is one of the best books I've had the opportunity to read. Written in the beautiful prose Alice Hoffman is so well known for, it follows the life of Gillian and Sally as they go on their diverse paths. Sally is the stable widow with two girls in tow. She leaves the aunts in New England, leaving her sad life behind, and moves to a Long Island suburb with her two girls where tries to live a normal life. Meanwhile, Gillian is a bad girl who is in and out of relationships and in and out of trouble. She finds the awful, abusive Jimmy and eventually kills him accidentally while enroute to visit her sister. Unsure of what to do, she brings him to her sister's house dead in the passenger seat of the car - she thinks stable Sally would know what to do to keep her out of jail. Sally meets the situation with borderline hysteria at first, then the two decide to bury him in Sally's backyard. Gillian moves in with Sally and her girls and tries to forget the body in the back yard. Sally's boring, stable life changes dramatically while Gillian's naughty life changes to a more stable one. Meanwhile they are haunted by the evil spirit of Jimmy, threatening to destroy the tenuous stability they try to build.

This book is not written in standard chapters - instead it is written in four large sections. Fortunately there are enough scene breaks in each section that you can put it down and read it in separate sittings. The thing is, once you're drawn into the story, you won't want to put it down. You'll want to read this one in a day, in one sitting if you can read fast enough. It is so beautifully written with an edge of suspense and just a tiny touch of magic. It will become a treasure on your bookshelf and one you'll only loan to your most reliable friends. Excellent!

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fall in love whenever you can . . ., September 30, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Practical Magic (Paperback)

That is an admonishment at the end of this wonderful book by Alice Hoffman. I'll preface my mini-review here with the following statement: Had anyone told me a year ago that I would read --in one day-- a romance about lives and loves of successive generations of women blessed or cursed with witchy powers, I would have laughed at them. A few years back, I tried to watch the movie "Practical Magic" and found myself thoroughly bored by what I considered a talky "chick flick." Since then, I've become a fan of Sandra Bullock and recently saw the film again, and found myself liking it for the most part. I particularly loved the sad, wistful character played by Bullock, that of Sally Owens.

So I checked the book out from the library, not knowing what to expect, and like a man in the story who becomes enchanted by a letter Sally writes that comes into his possession, "Practical Magic" hooked me. Hoffman writes with such easy, beautiful prose and the characters really spring to life and find a place in your heart and imagination.

I won't regurgitate the plot here. But I will say that Hoffman writes so well about perhaps the most exquisite and maybe the rarest kind of love, the type that hits both a man and a woman like a thunderbolt, overpowering and sweeping them both away. Hoffman's descriptions of this happening to Sally and her sister and the two men that they are destined to be with packs a tremendous and very satisfying emotional punch for any romantic, which I guess I am. Oh, how I found myself envying the lucky men who won the hearts of Sally and Gillian! To feel love as strong as that and be loved as fiercely in return must be the best thing in the world.

So read the book and like Sally Owens would say, fall in love whenever you can.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderfully enchanting, captivating story., July 13, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Practical Magic (Paperback)

My first taste of Alice Hoffman was Here on Earth. While the prose was beautiful, I was disappointed in the characters and plot. However, deep in my gut, I had a feeling there was more to Alice Hoffman than what she was displaying in that book. I couldn't write her off with all of the books she had written, and I felt there was more to her than I was shown. So, I did a little research and took some of her books out of the library. The second book I read was, Practical Magic, and I'm glad to see my instincts were right.

This bewitching, captivating novel is full of spellbounding characters, which is the main thing that was missing from Here on Earth.

Sally and Gillian are sisters who, because of the passing of their parents, end up getting raised by their two aunts, who are witches. Because of this, the sisters are ostrasized a bit from their peers, and long to be free from the house and the Aunts on Magnolia Street.

Raven-haired Sally is the older of the two sisters. She's practical, hard-working, good, responsible, and afraid to love. Golden-haired Gillian is wild, lazy, coniving, airy, and also afraid to love.

Gillian is the first to escape, by running off with a boy. She moves from town to town, from guy to guy, with three failing marriages behind her, before she shows up on her sister's doorstep with the dead body of her recent boyfriend, Jimmy, in the car.

Sally, who continued to stay with the Aunts, fell in love and got married to a wonderful man named Michael, finding a happy life of her own. She had a man she loved, and two daughters, Antonia and Kylie. Her world came crumbling down on her when Michael got killed by a drunk driver. She went into a deep depression, and when she finally snapped out of it, she packed up her two daughters and moved out into the Aunts' house and into one of her own.

There, she tried to provide a normal life for her daughters, wanting them to go to school without being called a witch. She was trying her best to build her life again when her sister appeared at her doorstep.

The book then focuses on Sally's two daughters, the red-headed, spunky, spoiled Antonia, and the more sensative, introverted Kylie, who seemed to develop powers to "see" things on her own.

To add depth to the story, Gillian and Sally are both challenged to love again when Ben comes into Gillian's life, and, towards the end of the story, Gary comes into Sally's.

The Aunts, who were always background characters, finally have dialogue towards the end of the story when their "help" is needed. Not only do the Aunts have something to say, but they have names: Aunt Frances and Aunt Jet. We also have the pleasure of getting to know them a little bit, too.

This is a book that's absolutely rich in characterization. There's three generations of Owens women in this book, and each one of them has a depth and personality all her own. The men that come into these womens' lives only add more depth and richness to the book.

What a wonderfully enchanting, imaginative story. I have a feeling this book will end up being one of my favorite books by Ms. Hoffman.