The Probable Future by, Alice Hoffman
From the back cover-Women of the Sparrow family have unusual gifts. Elinor can detect falsehood. Her daughter, jenny can see people’s dreams when they sleep. Granddaughter Stella has a mental window to the future-a future she might not want to see. When Stella’s premonitions puts her father in jail, wrongly accused of homicide.
This is a story of magical realism and 3 generations of women trying to handle the legacy of the Sparrow family and their own relationships with each other.
This is my first Alice Hoffman book after hearing so much about this author. I really enjoyed this story and the character development. This is a character driven book, yes, there is the whole dad in jail story line but it is not the main story.
The main story is about these generations of Sparrow women and how things that happened years ago to their ancestors can have an effect all those years later.
I did enjoy this book and plan on reading more by this author!
I would recommend this to anyone who likes magical realism or character driven storylines.
3 ½ Stars ( )

I agree with another reviewer who said she'd like to hang out w/the Sparrow women & eat at Liza's. Thoroughly enjoyable. Alice Hoffman at her best. I also recommend The River King and The Third Angel to those who enjoy her fiction. ( )

I loved the imagery in this book. I want to visit the town where it takes place, eat at Liza Hull's tea house, and hang out with the Sparrow women. ( )

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 bastard 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. ( )

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. ( )