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The Red Garden
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The Red Garden
Unavailable
The Red Garden
Audiobook7 hours

The Red Garden

Written by Alice Hoffman

Narrated by Nancy Travis

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

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Currently unavailable

Currently unavailable

About this audiobook

The Red Garden introduces us to the luminous and haunting world of Blackwell, Massachusetts. Hoffman offers a transforming glimpse of small-town America, presenting us with some three hundred years of passion, dark secrets, loyalty, and redemption in a web of tales.

From the town’s founder, a brave young woman from England who has no fear of blizzards or bears, to the young man who runs away to New York City, the characters in The Red Garden are extraordinary and vivid: a young wounded Civil War soldier who is saved by a neighbor, a woman who meets a fiercely human historical character, a poet who falls in love with a blind man, a mysterious traveler who comes to town in the year when summer never arrives. At the center of everyone’s life is a garden where only red plants can grow, and where the truth can be found by those who dare to look. The Red Garden is as unforgettable as it is moving.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateJan 25, 2011
ISBN9780307877765
Unavailable
The Red Garden
Author

Alice Hoffman

Alice Hoffman is the author of many books for children including Aquamarine, Green Angel, and Nightbird. Her books for adults include Practical Magic, The Museum of Extraordinary Things,The Dovekeepers and The Marriage of Opposites. Half Magic is her favorite book for children and Edward Eager is her favorite children’s book author.

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Reviews for The Red Garden

Rating: 3.756900226751592 out of 5 stars
4/5

471 ratings62 reviews

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  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The Red Garden is the story of a town in the Berkshires, from its beginnings in 1750 to just about current day. Starting with the founding families, we share in the connected lives of the residents as characters from one story show up in the next, ten or twenty years older and wiser. There are tragedies, fairy tales and extraordinary events that to me are the hallmarks of a classic Alice Hoffman book. Bears and eels and collies and ghosts, the occasional historical figure, and soil which makes everything planted turn red – Hoffman can throw in all those diverse ingredients and make a story you won’t want to put down. Her magical realism shines. If you’re an Alice Hoffman fan, this one won’t disappoint. It reminded me a lot of Blackbird House. If you’ve never read her, this is a good place to start.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I struggle to enjoy books of short stories, even in the case of this book that really is a series of stories around a town and its founding families over 300 years. It probably is not a fault of the book, if you like that sort of thing. I just felt like I'd read a bit of a story and might find it interesting, and then it would end and it would jump ahead 50 years without connecting the stories. It just wasn't my kind of book I guess, as I know Alice Hoffman as a good author.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The Red Garden is a history of the town of Blackwell, Massachusetts, from the first residents to the present. The first residents barely survive the harsh winter trapping rabbits, fishing eel from the river and drinking milk from a slumbering bear. Eventually the mother bear was killed by a trapper and the one surviving baby cub was killed and buried in what became known as the "red garden". From the original settlers a timeline is followed telling a story from each period of time that correlates in some way to the red garden up until current times. Each story is unique and mystical which stands on its own but all come eventually back to where it all began. From the drowning girl to the monster of Blackwell and the fisherman's wife and many more stories that fill the history of Blackwell and make it an intriguing small town to become acquainted with.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Like most of Hoffman's books, this story is a telling of everyday history, lightly laced with magic. The stories, as they come down through the generations, are charming and the linkage of one generation with another tells a story all its own.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I quite enjoyed Hoffman's collection of linked stories about residents of a small New England town in the Berkshires. The stories travel through time from the town's founding in the 18th century up until the late 20th century. The stories' protagonists are deeply embedded in the town, yet also in individual ways disconnected from it and the other inhabitants. They are touched in some way by the natural magic of their surroundings whether it be a bear, an eel, the local hillside or simply red soil. The characters are quirky, but thoroughly human. A pleasurable read all through.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I loved this book and was not ready for the story to end. The Red Garden takes the reader on a journey through the founding of the small town of Blackwell and weaves through generations of families and the legends and folklore they leave behind. Stories of love and loss and endurance and survival. This was a really great read and one I'm bound to pick up and read again.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Well, evidently, not only have I read this book but this is the second time I've listened to it on audio! And, it's still good. If a book is written by Alice Hoffman, you might as well get it and read it and then listen to it multiple times! I just love all her books. This one is a collection of interrelated short stories about the town of Blackwell, Massachusetts from the founding of the town by early settlers who almost perished to the more recent times of the 90's. As with most of her books, there is a mystical aspect to these stories which includes bears, eels and the red garden, itself. Loved it again!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This set of small stories/vignettes spans 250 years of life in Blackwell, MA, originally named Bearsville by its founder, a woman by the name of Hallie Brady. She saved the founding expedition by giving them the milk of a hibernating bear. An odd place of calm bears, women who are really eels in human form, an apple tree (planted by Johnny Appleseed) that never fails to provide fruit and can bloom in winter, and the ghost of a young girl who drowned in the river, the Blackwell of these stories centers on the home of Brady, where the back garden lays unused some generations because everything planted there grows red. The red of blood; the red of life. But while uncanny things happen here, these stories are not about ghosts or bears, but about love. Love in all its forms- romantic love, brotherly love, parental love, love for an animal, love lost, love found, love denied. Love, and the joy and misery that it can bring. The book moves through time with each chapter, using the descendants of the characters of the previous chapter. World events- the Civil War, the Spanish flu epidemic, the World Wars- touch and change (and sometimes kill) the residents of Blackwell, but are not allowed in. It’s obvious the town grows steadily, but the events take place in a small arena: the area first settled, the woods around it, and the Eel River. Hoffman’s writing draws the reader in hypnotically, leaving one wanting more, but the last chapter brings us up to current day Blackwell. This is one of Hoffman’s best.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I kept losing track of who was speaking. Just way too confusing.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This story was a surprise to me, on my journey, and a needed healing balm.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is an exquisite collection of short stories about the people who live in the isolated town of Blackwell, Massachussets -- and I don't usually care for short stories.

    I haven't read a lot of Alice Hoffman's books, but the ones I have read show her to be a writer very much in tune with the secret magic in life, as well as -- if you'll forgive the hackneyed phrase -- the magic of the human heart.

    And Hoffman doesn't just tell the stories of the humans of Blackwell. Bears, eels, apple trees, residences, a river, and the eponymous red garden all have important stories of their own, although they are never point of view characters. In fact, I should confess that one of the reasons I liked this book so much was because of the repeated, vivid presence of bears weaving in and out of the human narratives.

    The stories are all stand-alone, but each new story weaves an increasingly detailed and rich tapestry of Blackwell and its environs, as people -- and homes and eels and bears and ghosts -- carry forward the heritage of almost-forgotten ancestors.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this book! It is like a collection of short stories, but they are all set in, or nearby, the town of Blackwell, MA, and they span the years from it's founding in 1750 to 1986. The stories share similar threads - eels, apples, collies, the river, the garden, and The Apparition - and they all involve the same families and their descendants. Even Johnny Appleseed appears and he plants more than just apple seeds! :-) Definitely a good read!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is a beautiful story about a town. It's not about a particular person, or even about a family. It is about a town - Blackwell, Massachusetts. It begins when the town was founded in 1745, and it follows the Brady family descendants up to the present day. The book is told in a series of stories that are all connected even though all are in different time frames. The book is linked by the Eel River, the Blacktop Mountains, the presence of bears and by the Brady family and its descendants. Ms. Hoffman's magical prose and literate writing skills carries the reader along into her magical word. I listened to this as an audible book, and really enjoyed the narration as well as the story. Its' a mystical dreamland that we are invited into in this book.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Like some of the other reviews-i had trouble keeping up with all the characters and how they related. I think the story would have been a really good one if I could have connected them better.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I found the novel started with strong characters and interesting storyline of the historical origins of a town in Blackwell, MA. Somewhere in the middle I found it difficult to move through the several stories of the ancestors of the original characters. I'm sure it was just me but I found the introduction of the characters confusing at times. Most likely due to the audio version I had read. Ultimately, the book's title is revealed and how it ties together the ancestry of that town.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Six-word review: Linked stories explore dimensions of solitude.Extended review:When it comes to fiction, I'm not much of a day tripper. I prefer long journeys. So I don't read many short stories, not when I can settle into a hefty novel and live with it for a while.For the Kindle, however, it's nice to have some brief reading matter to pick up on my way out the door when I'm going to be sitting in a waiting room or taking someone on an errand. So, without seeking it out or particularly choosing it, I just sort of happened to find myself reading "The Bear's House," the first story in Alice Hoffman's The Red Garden.This, my friends, is what serendipity is for.The first of these lovely stories, which together span more than two hundred years, sets the scene and the tone: in an eighteenth-century settlement in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts, an unconventional young woman's courage and resourcefulness save a snowbound village from starvation. Hallie Brady, like the main characters in the stories that follow, lives within herself, a part of and yet apart from the community. The bond that she forms with an orphaned bear cub imparts a mystical quality that tinges all fourteen of these contemplative tales.Each of the individual protagonists is out of step with the community, and yet not disconnected from it. The town of Blackwell and the surrounding area, including Hightop Mountain and the Eel River, supply context and definition. Familial links among generations of residents, local lore, and natural and man-made features blend in a tapestry that evokes memories in the reader akin to the collective memories of the villagers. There is a sense that these fourteen tales, selected as if from the portraits in a gallery, are but a few of the many that might be told but that remain tantalizingly beyond reach. The evolution of place names and folklore and the commemoration in ritual of past events remind us of the inextricable threads of history, tradition, and myth.Taken together, these stories form a cycle with universal themes of survival and loss, belonging and isolation, and existential aloneness. I found them beautiful and satisfying. (Kindle edition)
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is a beautifully written book of interconnecting short stories. The first one "The Bear's House" was just about as perfect as a story can be. I was also captivated by the one about the 10 year old and her mother who escape to the town, the one about the faithful dog and the one about the woman who drops out of Radcliffe and finds dinosaur bones in the garden. These are people you'd want to know.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A quick, easy read that is more like a collection of related short stories. The writing is lovely, but lacked the thought provoking feel of some of her other writing. Still worth the read.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is not a novel, but a series of interconnected stories spanning the entire history of the town of Blackwell, Massachusetts. The passions and loves of generations are explored through Hoffman’s lyrical prose. Rebels and outcasts are the heroes of these tales.

    Although I have not been impressed with her last few books, Hoffman proves she can still pack an emotional punch with a few brief words. I think I would have enjoyed this more if the stories were longer.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Words just seem to flow from Alice Hoffman, drawing characters in spare delicate prose, at the same time telling the brutal truth. She is a poet, a story teller, and a truth teller.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I enjoyed this. The short story format made for an easy read without too much to follow. And I like that each story was a new generation of town residents with ties to all the stories that preceded. There were also very clear central themes that trailed along through each person's life.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    This book is a collection of interlocking short stories set in fictional Blackwell, a small village in the Berkshire Mountains in Western Mass. from early America to the late 20th century. As is the case in Hoffman's novels, the short stories are peppered with tidbits of magical realism, including a bear that nurse humans, a specter of young woman who runs along a lake, and a garden that only produces vegetables in red. Although I enjoy this author's novels, I had difficulty with her short stories. The short stories frequently contained themes of love, loss and grief. Unfortunately, I could not get into her world of Blackwell and found myself tediously jumping from one story to the next and was glad when the book was over.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The Red Garden by Alice Hoffman; shorts; (5*)Alice Hoffman, my favorite contemporary author, is a quiet sort of writer, not known for showy prose, whirlwind plots, or doorstop blockbusters. However what she does she does very well. She creates memorable images and conveys moments of emotional intensity using spare prose and enviable stylistic restraint. In a single sentence, she can create a world or destroy it utterly. The simplicity of her prose belies its emotional power which often sneaks up on her audience unaware as they read her novels. For it turns out that in addition to being a talented observer and a gifted stylist Hoffman is a masterful storyteller.This is especially true The Red Garden which is a collection of linked short stories that tell the history of fictional Blackwell, Massachusetts from its founding in 1750 to the late 20th century. This is a very small town which causes the same handful of surnames to surface from story to story and that the same handful of tall tales, gossip and legends persists from generation to generation. Careful readers will see how these myths grow out of the history of the community and how people's stories shape place as much as geography or historical events do.Blackwell was known in its earliest years as Bearsville due to the large population of bears dotting nearby Hightop Mountain. The opening story about the earliest settlers' salvation by a young woman named Hallie Brady sums up many of the novel's themes and motifs; a plucky but melancholy young woman who longs for love and finds it only in the most surprising places, an intense but uneasy relationship between humans and the natural environment, an undercurrent of magic and mystery, a legacy of loss and sorrow. These themes rise again and again, taking on the force of myth as they repeat themselves through the generations.Alice Hoffman is often known as a magic realist and The Red Garden is no exception. Ghosts, whether real or imaginary, surface again and again, their stories rooted in actual history, their recurrence a reminder that stories outlive their tellers. Hoffman relies at times on familiar archetypes such as the story of the eel wife but in a way that works perfectly with the very particular western Massachusetts environment she has created. And then there's the red garden of the novel's title, where the soil is red as blood and everything that's planted there also grows blood red, a symbol of the uncomfortable but inevitable intertwining of nature and culture, of love and loss.The emotional level of The Red Garden can sneak up on you as the author conveys awful incidents, intense passions and haunting images in the simplest, most matter of fact prose. But this seeming simplicity, this careful restraint, also highlights the truths she conveys and the wonders that inhabit each page of her marvelous stories. "A story can still entrance people even while the world is falling apart," writes Hoffman. Blackwell seems at times a town outside of history even when history arrives, as it does from time to time, on these people's doorsteps. Their stories, however, timeless yet timely, will entrance readers from all times and places.Alice Hoffman's works always entrance me.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Another great book by Alice Hoffman. I love how she writes. No one does magical realism like she does. This reminded me of Blackbird House, lots of similarities but I don't mind.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I really enjoyed this book. It's a series of vignettes about a small town in the Berkshires from it's founding to more recent times. The characters are all loosely connected in some way to the founders and there are a few cameo appearances from Johnny Appleseed and Emily Dickinson. I loved how the characters are all connected in some way (though I found myself wanting to make a character map to keep track of the connections!) A wonderful book.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This was excellent. Go read it.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This was a great read. It started slow, but it picked up momentum very quickly.

    This is the story of a town in Massachusetts; Blackwell, Massachusetts. It's a series of connected stories of the founders of the town and the lives of the people who lived there through modern times.

    I didn't enjoy all the stories, although they were all good. There were some that had me in tears and touched me deeply. The men and women featured were strong, weak, happy, sad, full of life and full of pain. It was a diverse group of people that made smart choices and not so smart choices. There was a feeling of getting to know someone you didn't think you'd ever meet. There were some I wanted to hug and others I wanted to smack O_o... I really enjoyed getting to know these people and this town.

    My favorite stories were: Owl and Mouse, The Truth About My Mother, The Monster of Blackwell, Kiss and Tell, The River At Home, The Red Garden and King of Bees.

  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is another wonderful book to add to my list of favorites this year. THE RED GARDEN was different than my usual reads, because it's actually the story of a town called Blackwell, told in a collection of interconnected short stories about the people who've lived there.The first story begins in the mid-1700s, when a small group of lost travelers settles in the valley below Hightop Mountain in Massachusetts, and the final one concludes in present day. The stories are presented chronologically, all featuring descendants of the original three families who survived the first winter. The tales flowed together smoothly, and often times we would meet characters again in their later years.Themes present throughout the book are love, loss, nature, and magic. I would almost consider this a collection of American folktales, because plenty of unexplained phenomena happen - a garden that only grows red plants, a ghost that haunts the river, a bear charmer, and more. And there's always a lesson to take away from the tale.THE RED GARDEN is a beautiful yet haunting book that will stay with me for a long time. The descriptions of the places and people were so vivid, I felt like I was a resident of Blackwell too. Not all the stories were happy ones, and a couple of them left me a blubbering mess, but I enjoyed the experience of listening to this book.The audiobook was superbly narrated by Nancy Travis. I loved her! 6 CDs/7 hours: 19 minutes.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A beautiful series of interconnected stories about the small town of Blackwell, Mass. Beginning with the town's founding by a group of lost settlers. Hallie, a determined teenager, manages to keep the starving settlers alive through the first winter. The rest of the book visits Hallie's descendants throughout history, telling their unique stories and odd adventures in Blackwell.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I always enjoy Alice Hoffman's books. This book is a series of interconnected stories that all take place in a small town in the mountains--beginning with the town's founding in the 1700s and continuing until the present day. Many of the characters are related to each other, and it was interesting trying to keep them straight in my mind. I read this book on my new eReader & enjoyed the afterwords.