Thanks to my local library I was able to get my hands on Alice Hoffman's The Story Sisters almost a week before its June 2nd release on Amazon. In its current pre-order status on Amazon, The Story Sisters is #764 in Books. Kindle sales rank is not yet available, but the book will be sold in Kindle format.
I have read very little Alice Hoffman- just a few short stories from Blackbird House. I was impressed by Hoffman's skillful use of magical realism, her blend of fairytale and real-life family saga. She did an excellent job of returning again and again to key themes (heirloom tomatoes, the color of the light in Paris) and key story events, so that the tale felt pleasantly timeworn. Throughout, I had the comfortable feeling that the story had not been written, but passed down through many generations. Each fateful turn of events seemed preordained, unavoidable, and it was hard to imagine the story unfolding in any other way.
Hoffman wrote fantastic and complex female characters, and the story grew organically from their strengths and flaws. But her male characters were pale by comparison. In most cases the males were nothing more than plot catalysts. Some were antagonists, pushing the women into darker places, others seemed to exist only for the purpose of satisfying the needs and desires of the women who, after all they had been through, seemed to deserve the kind of quiet hero who shovels the snow, buries friends, and comes to the rescue whenever the women need him the most. The most interesting of the men, Lorry, combined aspects of the antagonist and hero, but even he was just an agglomeration of two stock characters, and was hardly a person in his own right.
These overly convenient male characters are harbingers of the only other flaw in the book. The Story Sisters is just a little too sentimental, its moral compass too conventional. A writer with Hoffman's skill could do more than just reaffirm the values of family bonds and love. That said, she pulled off this reaffirmation with great skill and beauty.
I have read very little Alice Hoffman- just a few short stories from Blackbird House. I was impressed by Hoffman's skillful use of magical realism, her blend of fairytale and real-life family saga. She did an excellent job of returning again and again to key themes (heirloom tomatoes, the color of the light in Paris) and key story events, so that the tale felt pleasantly timeworn. Throughout, I had the comfortable feeling that the story had not been written, but passed down through many generations. Each fateful turn of events seemed preordained, unavoidable, and it was hard to imagine the story unfolding in any other way.
Hoffman wrote fantastic and complex female characters, and the story grew organically from their strengths and flaws. But her male characters were pale by comparison. In most cases the males were nothing more than plot catalysts. Some were antagonists, pushing the women into darker places, others seemed to exist only for the purpose of satisfying the needs and desires of the women who, after all they had been through, seemed to deserve the kind of quiet hero who shovels the snow, buries friends, and comes to the rescue whenever the women need him the most. The most interesting of the men, Lorry, combined aspects of the antagonist and hero, but even he was just an agglomeration of two stock characters, and was hardly a person in his own right.
These overly convenient male characters are harbingers of the only other flaw in the book. The Story Sisters is just a little too sentimental, its moral compass too conventional. A writer with Hoffman's skill could do more than just reaffirm the values of family bonds and love. That said, she pulled off this reaffirmation with great skill and beauty.
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