- Paperback: 336 pages
- Publisher: Ballantine Books; Reprint edition (Jun 2004)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0345455916
- ISBN-13: 978-0345455918
- Product Dimensions: 13.1 x 1.8 x 20.3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,868,749 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Product Description
The women of the Sparrow family have lived in New England for generations. Each is born in the month of March, and at the age of thirteen, each develops an unusual gift. Elinor can literally smell a lie. Her daughter, Jenny, can see people’s dreams as they’re dreaming them. Granddaughter Stella, newly a teen, has just developed the ability to see how other people will die. Ironically, it is their gifts that have kept Elinor and Jenny apart for the last twenty-five years. But as Stella struggles to cope with her disturbing clairvoyance, the unthinkable happens: One of her premonitions lands her father in jail, wrongly accused of homicide. The ordeal leads Stella to the grandmother she’s never met and to Cake House, the Sparrow ancestral home full of talismans and fraught with history. Now three generations of estranged Sparrow women must come together to turn Stella’s potential to ruin into a potential to redeem.
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First Sentence
ANYONE BORN AND BRED IN MASSACHUSETTS learns early on to recognize the end of winter. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt
ANYONE BORN AND BRED IN MASSACHUSETTS learns early on to recognize the end of winter. Read the first page
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I found this book at a book sale and thought it sounded like a good story. Well, I was wrong. It is a GREAT story!
The plot hearkens back to the day when a young girl walks out of the woods and into a colonial New England town. She has the ability to call the birds to her (sparrows) and thus is given the last name of Sparrow. From her untimely death to the present each of her female descendents is given a special ability on her thirteenth birthday. Each one is unique and serves a different purpose.
This story centers around Stella who is six generations descended from Rebecca. Stella's unique ability is being able to see how a person will die. This reader followed with keen interest the blend of past and present in an attempt to turn what could be a tragic gift into one that serves a more noble purpose.
The characters in this book are well defined and memorable. The setting is pure Massachussets.
I enjoyed this book so much that I've gone ahead and purchased five more by Ms. Hoffman.
The plot hearkens back to the day when a young girl walks out of the woods and into a colonial New England town. She has the ability to call the birds to her (sparrows) and thus is given the last name of Sparrow. From her untimely death to the present each of her female descendents is given a special ability on her thirteenth birthday. Each one is unique and serves a different purpose.
This story centers around Stella who is six generations descended from Rebecca. Stella's unique ability is being able to see how a person will die. This reader followed with keen interest the blend of past and present in an attempt to turn what could be a tragic gift into one that serves a more noble purpose.
The characters in this book are well defined and memorable. The setting is pure Massachussets.
I enjoyed this book so much that I've gone ahead and purchased five more by Ms. Hoffman.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
40 reviews
19 of 19 people found the following review helpful
Not Turtle Moon or Practical Magic - but still Hoffman
4 Nov 2005
Format:Paperback
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.
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.
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
An enjoyable lazy-afternoon read
16 Oct 2004
Format:Paperback
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.
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.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
I wish I wrote this book...
30 Mar 2006
Format:Paperback
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!
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!
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