Customer Reviews

Skylight Confessions (Center Point Platinum Fiction (Large Print))

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Once again, Alice Hoffman manages to create an otherworldly reality that feels completely grounded, with characters so touching and authentic they got right under my skin and stayed there. Other reviewers have done a good job of summarizing the plot, so I'll just say that this book has an unusual structure in that the protagonist changes somewhere in the middle, and it works. This is, more anything, a story that explores the idea of destiny, and asks questions about love along the way. Of course, Hoffman pulls all of this off with language so precise and beautiful my heart melted in my chest.
--Ellen Meister, author of Secret Confessions of the Applewood PTA

After her father's death, Arlyn Singer follows what she believes to be her destiny and weds John Moody. Completely mismatched, they wade through marriage and early parenthood, sometimes just barely keeping it together.

A devastating disease tears the family apart, leaving John to parent his troubled son and baby girl in a literal house of glass. Life moves on with a new wife and the help of a nanny. Yes, life moves on. But it isn't easy, as three generations of this family discover.

Hoffman's generational tale follows the paths taken by Arlyn's family. Each member faces what it means to live in the "Glass Slipper" house and beyond. It follows the family's potential devolution as Sam's brilliance is sucked away through drugs and alcohol, and Blanca is driven away by forces she hardly understands. As heartbreaking as it is hopeful, many layers of depth can be found buried in these pages.

Numerous point-of-view shifts make some scenes hard to follow, but this is otherwise a very readable novel. SKYLIGHT CONFESSIONS will speak to anyone fascinated by family structure and the human spirit.

Reviewed by Christina Wantz Fixemer
01/28/2007

As an avid fan of Alice Hoffman and her "magic realism" I order her books hardcover I am so sure of their enjoyment. I know the prose will be a lyrical, colorful, elegant and memorizing while tackling dark issues. I know I will be utterly consumed and unable to read just a bit here and there. I know I will come away pondering and appreciating the read for all it's beauty and ugliness. "Skylight Confessions" did NOT let me down.

Based on the premise of do we destine our fate or is it predestined for us, this story starts with Arlyn and John Moody and a marriage that both forced into being. From this union a prodigy of unhappiness, discontentment and violence explodes. Indeed dark subject matter, it is beautifully projected in what may be or not be. Are their specters? If so then is there presence to revenge or guide? Is there true evil? Are the sins of the father visited upon the sons or are the sons excused by the sin? Is destiny fated or do our decisions determine our future? Are we responsible for our actions or are we forced to play them out to their appointed destiny?

I read this book in an evening and into the wee hours as I could not put it down. Hoffman's lyrical prose tenderizes the rough grist of a story told with raw realism as well as magical. Her conjectures open the mind of the reader to introspection without imposing her own dogma.

A magnificent read that exercises mentally as well as entertains with liquid prose.

On his way to a house party on Long Island, Yale architecture student John Moody loses his bearings. When he stops at an anonymous house to ask for directions, he has no idea that it is a house in mourning --- or that the young woman he meets there is destined to haunt him for the rest of his life.

Arlyn Singer is 17, unconventionally beautiful with long red hair and freckles that blanket her luminous skin. The night John Moody arrives, Arlyn is grieving the recent death of her father, waiting for what comes next: "She had convinced herself that her future would arrive on the street where she'd lived her whole life if only she'd wait long enough. If she trusted in fate." Trusting, waiting, expecting --- when John Moody pulls up and asks for directions, he has no idea of the weight of Arlyn's expectations for him, or the extent to which this one chance encounter will shape his future.

That night, though, utterly convinced that John Moody is her destiny, Arlyn seduces the pragmatic young man. And the rest, as they say, is history. Family history, that is, as the two inevitably marry and have a son, Sam, a troublingly morose child whose odd obsessions disturb everyone except Sam's doting mother. As for John, he grows increasingly distant from Arlyn and Sam, throwing himself into his work, convinced that Arlyn, a woman so unlike whom he had always imagined for himself, has somehow bewitched him into a life he was never meant to have. Soon, Arlyn is also convinced that her belief in destiny was wrong, and she finds comfort in the arms of another man.

However, Arlyn's brief taste of true love is not to last. In her mid-20s, having just given birth to her second child, Arlyn develops breast cancer and dies. Her death is particularly hard on Sam, who grows more and more despondent, identifying with the mythical Icarus and fixating on his mother's story about a race of winged men. Descending into drug addiction even as he dreams of ascending into the heights, Sam is soon lost to the rest of his family.

John himself moves forward almost obsessively, remarrying quickly and remaining visibly unmoved by Arlyn's death. In secret, though, John is haunted by visions of his late wife, whose ghostly presence refuses to leave him despite his professed desire for a new life. Why do the dead haunt us? Alice Hoffman asks. Is it that they have unfinished business here, or is it that the living refuse to let them go?

In her typical style, Hoffman mingles magical realism with a three-generational family saga in SKYLIGHT CONFESSIONS. Ghosts appear and disappear, pearls change color depending on their wearer's mood, birds congregate, dishes break and ashes gather --- all without explanation. Hoffman also distills her narrative through evocative images that will haunt the reader long after the novel's close. A central image, of course, is the family's home, an architectural showplace called the Glass Slipper. In Hoffman's skillful hands, the Glass Slipper comes to represent John's failings, the couple's scarred marriage, Sam's frightening isolation, and the ironic fact that, despite living in a house made almost entirely of glass, the Moodys are a family who never really see each other --- until it's too late.

Through the use of spare, almost simplistic language and sentence structure, as well as concrete images, Hoffman constructs a narrative that elevates a family drama filled with tragedy and loss into a saga worthy of Icarus himself. This is a mythic tale that, in the end, offers tentative reconciliation, cautious forgiveness and a belief that people just might be able to fly after all.

--- Reviewed by Norah Piehl

This book was an excellent example of true Alice Hoffman work. I have read all of her books and love every one of them. She tells a story of people's lives with an otherworldly quality that is mesmerizing. I was immediately enthralled with the characters and the story line. It is a tale of fate, destiny and faith in yourself. Her characters, although very much flawed, are the type of people you root for and want good things for. I would recommend this to anyone who is capable of suspending disbelief and who likes to be drawn into another world for a time.

This was my first Hoffman book, and though I thought the first chapter strained credulity...I fell in love with it! Vivid characters; an engaging, well-crafted storyline- Skylight Confessions is a great read that resonates long after the last page.

Like many people have written here, I'm a huge fan of Alice Hoffman but I found this book to be disappointing. It started off very strong and I thought it was a page turner. However, it turned into a drag of a story and much too depressing and without merit. The story of the son was just maudlin and I felt, totally unrealistic. I was waiting for more magic and more life but I found this tale to be a dying story. It's like it started with so much hope but just failed to deliver, in my opinion. Alice Hoffman, we will wait with great expectations for more of your old charm.

I have always loved Alice Hoffman's works. I have read everyone of them and as usual she does not diappoint with Skylight Confessions. It is a book that is told out in a way you can't put it down. She brings the entire history of this family together beautifully. I would and have recommended this book to all my friends and family that love to read as much as I do. Thank You, Susan McCelllan

Alice Hoffman is one of my favorite authors so I eagerly await her newest works as they appear. This is one of her best, her writing has matured over time. I particularly enjoyed the family dynamics and the interplay of addiction, self-destruction, and hope in the midst of despair. She portrays real people in pain, yet with creativity tand tenacity that emerges and presses forward. Another winner!

SKYLIGHT CONFESSIONS is the story of a doomed family, told in true Alice Hoffman style. Seventeen-year-old Arlyn Singer's father has just died, and, feeling lost and lonely, Arlyn has vowed that the next man she sees will be her true love. And then college student John Moody stops and asks Arlyn for directions -- a moment in time that will seal both of their fates. The couple marries after a whirlwind romance and, in true fairy tale fashion, takes up residence in a famous house known as the Glass Slipper, a pinnacle of modern architecture designed by John's architect father. But fate was cruel to Arlyn on the night she met John, leading her into a loveless, utterly mismatched marriage of mutual infidelity and resentment. John and Arlyn have two children and one extramarital affair each before a devastating illness tears them apart. Hoffman's narrative diverges to follow the paths of the Moody children -- haunted, self-destructive Sam and nurturing, bookish Blanca -- through the courses their lives take, as their past plays a part in the futures they choose for themselves.

The biggest thing SKYLIGHT CONFESSIONS has going for it is that it was written by Alice Hoffman. The family drama within its pages has been read in countless novels before this one -- but it's doubtful that any of those other books have unfolded as magically as Hoffman's does. SKYLIGHT CONFESSIONS is a Hoffman novel through and through, complete with complicated characters, surreal situations, and the magical realism for which she's so well known. Hoffman's prose is beguiling, as always, and her metaphors are especially poignant in this outing.

Aside from the fact that Hoffman tells the story well, though, SKYLIGHT CONFESSIONS barely seems to skim the surface of this compelling family. I think the novel (only 272 pages with wide margins) would have been better if it were longer, if it further explored the characters in even more depth. And while all of Hoffman's novels have an undertone of sadness in them, this story is darker than most; so be prepared for a heavy, depressing read when you sit down with it.

I would recommend SKYLIGHT CONFESSIONS, but Hoffman's latest is far from her best work. If you're thinking about reading Alice Hoffman for the first time, I'd start with something that better exemplifies her masterful syle and mesmerizing prose -- THE RIVER KING, PRACTICAL MAGIC, and TURTLE MOON are my favorites. I always look forward to a new Hoffman novel, so I was a little bit disappointed that I didn't like this one more -- but I'm sure her next book will captivate me all over again!