The Probable Future (Ballantine Reader's Circle) (Paperback)

by Alice Hoffman (Author) "ANYONE BORN AND BRED IN MASSACHUSETTS learns early on to recognize the end of winter..." (more)
Key Phrases: daffodil rain, cake house, silver compass, Rebecca Sparrow, Will Avery, Elinor Sparrow (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
-A thrilling adventure of literary alchemy . . . A magical, mystical tour de force of pure entertainment.-
-The Seattle Times

-Delicious . . . Hoffman is an unapologetic optimist, and optimism is in short supply these days. It feels like a vacation to curl up with [The Probable Future].-
-The New York Times Book Review

-Instantly alluring . . . A mysterious, modern-day fairy tale . . . Hoffman is an amazingly talented writer with a beautiful sense of sentence construction, an intriguing imagination, and the ability to create compelling, complex characters that readers care about.-
-Fort Worth Star-Telegram

-Hoffman-s ethereal tale of a family of women with supernatural gifts is a magical escape, grounded in the complex relationships between mothers and daughters.-
-Marie Claire

-HOFFMAN KNOWS HOW TO PUT MAGIC INTO HER NOVELS, sometimes as an element of the plot;
always in the quality of her writing.-
-The Hartford Courant

-The Probable Future dazzles with its bristling examination of life-s trying tests of the women of the Sparrow family. The electrifying result is an under-the-microscope look at love, friendship, and the ties that blind and bind.-
-The Seattle Times

-[A] bewitching story of gifted women unlucky at love . . . Hoffman is now expert at sketching the New England landscape in the past and future, and the equally chilly psychological landscape of extraordinary women trapped in an ordinary word. . . . She shows a deft hand at tracing the movement from child to adult, showing an unusual ability to create sympathetic characters of all ages.-
-Richmond Times-Dispatch

-Hoffman has perfected her very own entrancing style of magical realism and mystical romance anchored to th... --This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Review
“A thrilling adventure of literary alchemy . . . A magical, mystical tour de force of pure entertainment.”
—The Seattle Times

“Delicious . . . Hoffman is an unapologetic optimist, and optimism is in short supply these days. It feels like a vacation to curl up with [The Probable Future].”
—The New York Times Book Review

“Instantly alluring . . . A mysterious, modern-day fairy tale . . . Hoffman is an amazingly talented writer with a beautiful sense of sentence construction, an intriguing imagination, and the ability to create compelling, complex characters that readers care about.”
—Fort Worth Star-Telegram

“Hoffman’s ethereal tale of a family of women with supernatural gifts is a magical escape, grounded in the complex relationships between mothers and daughters.”
—Marie Claire

“HOFFMAN KNOWS HOW TO PUT MAGIC INTO HER NOVELS, sometimes as an element of the plot;
always in the quality of her writing.”
—The Hartford Courant

“The Probable Future dazzles with its bristling examination of life’s trying tests of the women of the Sparrow family. The electrifying result is an under-the-microscope look at love, friendship, and the ties that blind and bind.”
—The Seattle Times

“[A] bewitching story of gifted women unlucky at love . . . Hoffman is now expert at sketching the New England landscape in the past and future, and the equally chilly psychological landscape of extraordinary women trapped in an ordinary word. . . . She shows a deft hand at tracing the movement from child to adult, showing an unusual ability to create sympathetic characters of all ages.”
—Richmond Times-Dispatch

“Hoffman has perfected her very own entrancing style of magical realism and mystical romance anchored to the moody, history-laden Massachusetts countryside. . . . Hoffman’s newest cast of characters is unfailingly magnetic, from her eye-rolling teenagers to her wryly in-love seniors to her suddenly aflame fortysomethings, and the story she tells is as lush as it is suspenseful, as rich in earthy and sensuous detail as it is sweet and hopeful.”
—Booklist

“Hoffman is at her best, chronicling in meticulous and beautiful detail the ways the three Sparrow women are transformed . . . The characters are richly
drawn, each idiosyncratically real and yet each just a bit of a sorceress.”
—Book magazine (four stars)

“Full-bodied, wholly absorbing characters . . . Hoffman’s storytelling is as spellbinding as ever.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Spellbinding . . . Of all the magical realists writing today, she may have the best sense of balance.”
—Portland Oregonian

“Filled with vivid . . . characters and cinematic descriptions of New England landscapes, this book will be a hit.”
—Library Journal

“[A] lyrical, magic-infused work . . . Another witches’ brew of ethereal characters [and] lush settings.”
—Seattle Post-Intelligencer

“Delicious . . . Like a piece of old-fashioned chocolate cake, Hoffman’s novel feeds a craving.”
—The New York Times Book Review

“Delicious . . . Hoffman is an unapologetic optimist, and optimism is in short supply these days. It feels like a vacation to curl up with this fairy tale suffused with the ‘filmy green light’ of spring, smelling of ‘wild ginger and lake water,’ its sweetness balanced by deft touches of the Gothic.”
—The New York Times Book Review




See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books (June 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345455916
• ISBN-13: 978-0345455918
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #185,618 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not Turtle Moon or Practical Magic - but still Hoffman, November 4, 2005

By	Debbie Lee Wesselmann (the Lehigh Valley, PA) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

The Probable Future opens in familiar Alice Hoffman territory: in a New England town, Jenny Sparrow frets over the legacy her daughter Stella will receive upon waking on her thirteenth birthday. All Sparrow woman - and they are all women - find their one "talent", always something magical or supernatural, on this day. The first Sparrow, Rebecca, could not feel pain while Jenny's mother Elinor can instantly detect a lie. Jenny herself dreams other people's dreams. In true Hoffman fashion, the gift Stella receives affects not only the direction of her life but of those who love her - Jenny, Elinor, Jenny's errant ex-husband Will; Will's brother Matt; Liza, the owner of the town tea house; Hap, Stella's new best friend; and Brock Stewart, Elinor's doctor and companion.

While parts of this novel are groaningly familiar, Hoffman deftly moves from these moments to something more solid and truthful. The author has her own gift, that of confident narration. Her characterizations are memorably detailed, with the portrayal of Brock Stewart perhaps the most touching I have encountered in her fiction. Unlike in Turtle Moon and Practical Magic, the magic realism here is not as much a crucial part of the story as it is an overlay. Even though Stella's gift does prompt a journey back to the Sparrows, the reasons seem forced and the action unnecessary. This story would be every bit as moving without the Sparrow women's gifts, fireflies that ignite, and bees that demand politeness. Some fans might be disappointed by the lack of seamless integration of magic and realism in this novel, but others will be thankful the author did not force it upon a story which has its most honest moments between ordinary people. Love and the author's literary expressions of its intricacies figure heavily, verging on sentimentality, but again, Hoffman seems to instinctively know when to abandon this direction just her writing is in danger of becoming maudlin.

Turtle Moon and Practical Magic remain Alice Hoffman's most inventive novels; however, The Probable Future has its own charms. Quiet, loving, and upbeat, this novel is more likely to appeal to women than to men.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars An enjoyable lazy-afternoon read, October 16, 2004

By	Elisabeth Carey (Lawrence, MA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The Sparrows are a family of women who've lived in a small Massachusetts town since colonial times, their lives enlivened by a magical gift (different for each of them) that first manifests itself on their thirteenth birthdays. As is often the case with magic, the term "gift" is applied here fairly loosely. In the present day, Elinor always knows a lie, her daughter Jenny experiences other people's dreams, and granddaughter Stella, just turned thirteen, has developed the ability to see how people will die. The relationship-wrecking potential of the first two gifts is of course blindingly obvious, and the third would be a heavy burden for anyone to bear-especially a thirteen-year-old who's not speaking to the mother who's screwing up their relationship by trying to avoid all of her mother's mistakes.
These are well-drawn characters who often inspire, simultaneously, the desire to give them tea and crackers and the desire to knock their heads together. Jenny is completely justified and utterly wrong-headed in her resentment of her mother; so is Stella. Jenny is absolutely correct in having concluded, after having it pounded into her head repeatedly, that Stella's father, Will Avery, is a lying, cheating (...)who can be relied on only to let everyone down. Stella is also right in believing him to be a loving, devoted parent who actually listens to her, which her mother does not.
There is a plot in here, involving Stella's gift of seeing deaths accidentally landing Will in jail, charged with murder, but the plot is not the point. The focus of this book is the engaging, and ultimately optimistic, story of the tangled relationships of the Sparrow women and their friends and relations.
An enjoyable lazy-afternoon read.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I wish I wrote this book..., March 30, 2006

By	B. Billerbeck "krisbeck" (Silicon Valley, CA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I'll tell you reading some of the reviews on this site, I thought, wow, this is a hard audience to please! Hoffman has so many plot lines, and all of the characterization felt deep and well-thought out. But the thing is, I didn't stop to notice this during the book, because I was just into the story.

I disagree that Will Avery was unbelievable. Everyone knows a slacker in life who works so hard to get away with not working. I also loved the magical elements -- and how it made you think, you know, being mortal -- not such a bad thing.

Really great read!