White Horses [Paperback]

Alice Hoffman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 1999

When Teresa was a little girl, she dreamed of dark-eyed, fearless heroes on white horses who would sweep her away. But now, as the adult Teresa negotiates life and love, she begins to understand that fairy tales don't always come true...

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Alice Hoffman is the author of fifteen novels: Blue Diary (2001), The River King (2000), Local Girls (1999), Here On Earth (1997), Practical Magic (1995), Second Nature (1994), Turtle Moon (1992), Seventh Heaven (1990), At Risk (1988), Illumination Night (1987), Fortune’s Daughter (1985), White Horses (1982), Angel Landing (1980), The Drowning Season (1979), and Property Of (1977). She is also the author of three children’s books: Aquamarine (2001), Horsefly (2000), and Fireflies (1997).

Born in New York City, and raised on Long Island, Hoffman graduated from Adelphi University and received an M.A. from Stanford University, where she was Mirrielees Fellow. She currently lives near Boston with her family and her dogs.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Berkley Trade (October 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0425170500
• ISBN-13: 978-0425170502
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #830,129 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

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A compelling, mystical book, September 3, 2001

By 

Suspense Fan - See all my reviews

This review is from: White Horses (Paperback)

Unlike most of the reviews I have read, I found White Horses to be one of Hoffman's most poignant works. I think the incest theme puts a lot of people off this beautiful book. It would have been much better had Silver been a step-brother, because the book isn't about incest at all, but about romantic love. What happened to Teresa happens to many women: what she saw was an illusion, she didn't see Silver the way he really was. She saw only what she wanted to see--a knight on a white horse, a rescuer. I think to fully enjoy this book a person would have to have a romantic heart and a feeling for romantic fantasy. Personally, I liked it better than "The River King" and some of her newer books. Some of the images stick in the mind. The way she incorporated myth and reality worked together in this book. In some of her others it gets in the way. In "The River King" the images of roses, etc got downright sickening. In this book there is just enough hint of the supernatural to add a deeper dimesion. Perhaps this book wouldn't be everyone's cup of tea, but it was the first book of hers I read and I continue to think it is still her best.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Dark Fairytale, June 14, 2000

By 

MaddalenaC "MaddalenaC" (NV USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: White Horses (Paperback)

White Horses has the otherworldly quality of a fairy or folktale. Although the book was compelling in the sense that I kept reading to see how it would end, most of the characters were unsympathetic. Teresa, the heroine, seems totally uninvolved in any relationship except for the incestuous one with her brother. It is as thought she is unable to feel for anyone except herself and him. Her relationship with her mother is cool and distant, although she seems to miss her. Her relationship with the one sympathetic character who genuinely cares for her, her stepfather-in-all-but-name, Arnie Bergen, is cruel and indifferent. The object of her affection, her brother Silver, has no redeeming social qualities and thinks of himself and his needs before all else. It is difficult to see what attraction he would have for even a sister, let alone any woman. On the other hand he and Teresa both seem to use people without regard to the feelings of the people they use. They bite the hands that feed them. They are cut from the same piece of cloth. Perhaps their attraction for each other is based in seeing each other as their other selves, but in each case neither self is very attractive. Theresa just drifts around letting things happen to her. She takes no control over her life. Silver is little more than a slimy character. I kept reading because Ms. Hoffman is a master storyteller and the story has the quality of a fairy tale, i.e., it uses archetypes such as the Aria, background information is kept purposefully vague, (is Dina's family Spanish? It seems possible, but is never specified through hints like Spanish words) lending the story a universal quality. She was able to keep me interested even though the characters themselves were uninvolving, I wanted to see where she would take them. Unlike her book Turtle Moon, which I have reread several times, I would probably not reread this book.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A haunting story of survival, May 7, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: White Horses (Paperback)

I'm glad I read this book even though the life of the main character, Teresa, is so troublesome and painful. Her physical/mental ailment and her family's breakup tear her life apart. She keeps looking for the ideal man (on a white horse), but finds only abusive males, including her own brother. Although some readers may be repulsed, as I was, by the incest in the book, it's a reality many people face. Alice Hoffman is so diverse in her writing. I enjoyed this book more than her Here On Earth. The book does, I think, end on a positive note, and I keep thinking about Teresa's endurance.