Blackbird House Pdf is a Historical Fiction and Magical Realism Short Story By Alice Hofffman. Through these interconnected narratives more than a dozen men and women learn how love transforms us and how it is the one lasting element in our lives.
Blackbird House Book Summary
With “incantatory prose” that “sweeps over the reader like a dream,” (Philadelphia Inquirer), Hoffman follows her celebrated bestseller The Probable Future, with an evocative work that traces the lives of the various occupants of an old Massachusetts house over a span of two hundred years.
In a rare and gorgeous departure, beloved novelist Alice Hoffman weaves a web of tales, all set in Blackbird House. This small farm on the outer reaches of Cape Cod is a place that is as bewitching and alive as the characters we meet: Violet, a brilliant girl who is in love with books and with a man destined to betray her; Lysander Wynn, attacked by a halibut as big as a horse, certain that his life is ruined until a boarder wearing red boots arrives to change everything; Maya Cooper, who does not understand the true meaning of the love between her mother and father until it is nearly too late. From the time of the British occupation of Massachusetts to our own modern world, family after family’s lives are inexorably changed, not only by the people they love but by the lives they lead inside Blackbird House.
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Blackbird House pdf, Paperback, Hardcover Book Information
- Publisher : Ballantine Books; Reprint edition (March 29, 2005)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 238 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0345455932
- ISBN-13 : 978-0345455932
- Item Weight : 8.8 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.2 x 0.6 x 8 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #103,512 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #905 in Magical Realism
- #1,092 in Contemporary Literature & Fiction
- #6,631 in American Literature (Books)
- Customer Reviews: 4.2 out of 5 stars 1,110 ratings
Blackbird House Book Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars My new favorite book
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 29, 2013
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I love this book, though it’s not something I could happily read regularly because it’s so tragic. The main character is the house, which changes, grows, and shrinks with each inhabitant. Their lives revolve around love, sacrifice, tragedy, mental breakdowns, parental influence, and ultimately second chances.
The house is originally built just before the Revolutionary War, by John Hadley, a man whose livelihood is tied to the Cape, and all the dangers that come with it. With a wife and two sons, he needs the money from one more fishing trip. Despite his wife Coral’s prophetic objections, he takes both boys with him on the trip. I always cry my eyes out for poor little Isaac, a ten year old boy with a tender heart, who rescues a baby blackbird, and won’t let it out of his sight despite being teased by his father and older brother. They swear the bird will never learn to fly on its own. When all is lost and the ship is going down in a nor’easter, Isaac throws the blackbird up in the air with both hands “a last desperate act of love”, trying to save it, knowing that he will die in the storm. The father saves his older son, throwing him a barrel, but goes down himself, with Isaac.
As usual, Hoffman’s imagery and literary devices aren’t exactly subtle. A white blackbird returns to the house. Also as usual, she lets her readers come to their own conclusions and doesn’t provide enough information for there to be a “right” answer. Is the white blackbird imaginary? Is Coral imagining it, and does suggestibility keep subsequent inhabitants seeing this legend? Is the bird real? The ghost of a blackbird? The ghost of someone else? The reader is left to come to her own conclusions. Blackbirds, in most legends, are portents of evil or bad luck. I think the blackbirds in this story could be portents of both good or bad luck, depending on how you look at it. It appears as a warning.
Another main theme of the book is the influence parents have over their children. The children who grew up in Blackbird House are so greatly influenced by their parents, the kid’s futures are defined by them. Whether the kids want to be exactly like their parents, or as different as humanly possible, what goes on in the house creates the adults the children become. Garnet, seeing her mother’s instability after her father dies, decides she “has to be careful about who she becomes.” Jamie grows up in a community unwilling to do anything about domestic abuse next door, and goes on to become a doctor. Maya, who despises her poor, hippy parents, doesn’t recognize the unique deep love they have until after her brother proves running away solves nothing. Violet’s fierce love for Lion is part of what makes him great, and part of what ends his life, leaving his son for her to obsess over. As with every story, love does not guarantee safety.
The color red and pears are also imagery that keeps repeating itself. The pear tree leaves the property in much the same way it came there — a split second request or decision made by someone less than mentally stable. The sweet peas are very interesting. Talk about some hardly perennials, Coral’s sweet peas keep coming back for 250 years, despite some of the residents doing their best to get rid of them in every way possible. To me, they represent hope, which can never be completely gotten rid of no matter how deep you dig at the roots.
The summer kitchen is another feature of the house used in various ways, from a genuine summer kitchen in a time without air conditioning in which it was impossible to work in a hot indoor kitchen in the heat of the summer, to a playhouse or extra room for the family’s boys. And little boys with blonde hair are everywhere.
The final resident in the home, Emma, changes the feel of the house, and the novel, by surviving childhood cancer. It’s best to make a wish on the longest day of the year, and we have the impression Emma made a wish that came true.
The book comes full circle in the end. After the loss of her husband and sons, Coral was a woman left alone on the property at the beginning of the novel. Emma is a woman alone on the property who meets a father and son who have lost their wife/mother. As a nameless, curious, perhaps a bit too-wise, 10 year old boy with blonde hair invites himself into Emma’s house, we have a feeling a former resident may finally have come home. I wonder if the white blackbird will continue to be seen or whether it’s finally found peace. Sorry this review is long! And more like a book discussion than review. Oh well, LOL, enjoy the stories.
5.0 out of 5 stars Stunning: the stories creep up on you
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 21, 2022
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I’m a big fan of Hoffman, but I wasn’t prepared for this. With the first of the series of short stories she lulled me, drew me in – and ended – and I unexpectedly erupted in a flood of tears. Not because it was sad, but because it was just so HUMAN, with all of the ups and downs that being human entails. And she did it over the course of a small story, without me even realizing how fully I’d become engaged. Utterly brilliant. I’ve read and reread this book three times now in the less-than 2 full months I’ve had it, and it still moves me deeply.
Each of the stories resonates with authenticity and quickly pulls me into their lives. So much, in such a small number of words. Absolutely brilliant writing, brilliant story-telling. Hoffman is a master craftswoman.
About Alice Hoffman Author Of Blackbird House Pdf Book
Alice Hoffman Author Of Blakbird House Pdf Book is the author of thirty works of fiction, including Practical Magic, The Dovekeepers, Magic Lessons, and, most recently, The Book of Magic. She lives in Boston. Visit her website: www.alicehoffman.com
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