Local Girls

Overview

Alice Hoffman is at her haunting, thought-provoking best with these interconnected stories about a Long Island family, the Samuelsons, and the lessons in survival and transformation that life brings to every family...
"Pulls the reader in effortlessly...Hoffman has the power to make you really laugh and really cry." --USA Today

"Moving and deadpan funny...Epiphanies about passion, pain, and resiliency induce smiles and shivers in equal measure." --Entertainment Weekly

Editorial Reviews

Hoffman's chosen form of a novelistic group of short storiesAall of which share the same family charactersAlends itself nicely to the abridged audio format, in which the fragmentation seems a willful form of stylized narration. The audio's producers have augmented this effect: two narrators, the airy Merlington and the pragmatic Vigesaa, play off against each other in tone as they trade stories. In the opener, Gretel Samuelson tells of her family's troubles in confidential, diarylike schoolgirl terms. In later offerings, omniscient descriptions are given of mother Franny's fight against cancer and brother Jason's disintegration as a heroin addict. Though dysfunctional family fiction seems standard fare these days, Hoffman's highly individual knack for creating a sense of specific atmosphere is uncanny and unique, a quality that translates especially well in spoken form. Based on the 1999 Putnam hardcover.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Author Information

Bio of Alice Hoffman

Alice Hoffman was born in New York City on March 16, 1952 and grew up on Long Island. After graduating from high school in 1969, she attended Adelphi University, from which she received a BA, and then was a Mirrellees Fellowship at the Stanford University Creative Writing Center, which she attended in 1973 and 74, receiving an MA in creative writing. Hoffman's first novel, PROPERTY OF, was written at the age of twenty-one; while she was studying at Stanford, and published shortly thereafter by Farrar Straus and Giroux. Ms. Hoffman credits her mentor, professor and writer Albert J. Guerard and his wife, the writer Maclin Bocock Guerard, for helping her to publish her first short story in the magazine FICTION. Editor Ted Solotaroff then contacted her to ask if she had a novel, at which point she quickly began to write what was to become PROPERTY OF, a section of which was published in Mr. Solotaroff's magazine, American Review. Hoffman has been represented by Elaine Markson of the Elaine Markson Agency for the past twenty-five years. Hoffman is married, lives outside Boston, and is the mother of two sons. Alice Hoffman has published a total of fifteen novels, two books of short fiction, and six books for children. Her novel, HERE ON EARTH, an Oprah Book Club choice, was a modern reworking of some of the themes of Emily Bronte's masterpiece WUTHERING HEIGHTS. PRACTICAL MAGIC was Warner's film starring Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman. Ms. Hoffman's novel, AT RISK, which concerns a family dealing with AIDS, can be found on the reading lists of many universities, colleges and secondary schools. All of the author's advance from LOCAL GIRLS (G.P. Putnam and Berkley Books), a collection of inter-related fictions about love and loss on Long Island, have been donated to help create a breast cancer center outside of Boston. Hoffman's most recent books are GREEN ANGEL (Scholastic) a novel for teens, MOONDOG (Scholastic) a picture book written with her son, Wolfe Martin, The New York Times bestsellers THE RIVER KING, BLUE DIARY, and THE PROBABLE FUTURE and BLACKBIRD HOUSE, published by Ballantine in March 2005. The ICE QUEEN, published by Little, Brown and Company, is a searing first person account of a dark fairy tale world where anything is possible. Hoffman's work has been published in more than twenty translations and more than one hundred foreign editions. Her novels have received mention as notable books of the year by The New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, The Los Angeles Times, Library Journal, and People Magazine. Ms. Hoffman has also worked as a screenwriter for many years and is the author of the original screenplay INDEPENDENCE DAY, a film starring Kathleen Quinlan and Diane Weist. Hoffman's short fiction and non-fiction have appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Globe Magazine, Kenyon Review, Boulevard, Redbook, Architectural Digest, Gourmet, Premier, Self, Southwestern Review and many other magazines.

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Additional Info

Imprint

Berkley Trade

Filesize

147.32 KB

Number of Pages

208

eBook ISBN

9781440669583