I’m ambivalent about Practical Magic, the first novel I’ve read by Alice Hoffman. It reminds me a bit of the Vianne Rocher books by Joanne Harris, only it is more heavy handed and less principled.
Gillian and Sally Owens have grown up in their aunts’ house in Massachusetts and have always longed for something different. Their aunts are considered witches, and people walk on the other side of the street when they see the girls. Sally longs for normalcy and tries to keep the untidy house clean and feed everyone wholesome meals. Gillian is spoiled and beautiful.
Eventually, both of them leave. Gillian runs away to begin a series of ill-conceived marriages and affairs. Sally’s brief marriage brings her two daughters of her own, Antonia and Kylie. When her husband is killed in a car accident, she flees the dark old house for suburbia and a chance for a normal life for her daughters.
Thirteen years go by before Gillian arrives unannounced at Sally’s house bringing trouble. Her latest boyfriend Jimmy is a dangerous criminal, and Gillian has accidentally killed him. His body is out in the car, and she has come to her sister for help. Together, they bury the body in the yard, but soon they are being haunted.
This story is told in a fairy tale style, and despite several setbacks, we are in no doubt that everything will turn out all right in the end. Characters fall madly in love on sight, and the troubles between both sets of sisters are worked out. The final removal of the spirit requires the assistance of the aunts themselves. Of course, it turns out that Gillian didn’t really kill her lover.
I guess I felt as if everything was tied up too neatly in this story. It’s a romance novel lightly disguised as magical realism, and I haven’t much patience for either.
On the one hand, I found myself mildly enjoying the novel. On the other hand, I found it too cheerfully immoral. We are supposed to accept through most of the book that Gillian killed her lover, however accidentally, and that it is okay to cover it up. Finally, the law officer who tracks them down while looking for Jimmy is required to fall in love with Sally on sight so that he can help cover up their crime, despite his being perfectly straight-laced up to that point. Even if the “murder” turns out not to be as big a crime as they thought, now he has committed a crime, too, which everyone immediately forgets so that they can live happily ever after. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
What? Me Read? 
It’s funny, because I watched this movie as a kid and enjoyed it. But I was much more interested in the witchy/magic parts than the murder subplot, or even the romance part. Now I see that it was pretty much critically panned. haha. Just goes to show that it’s hard for kids to distinguish between “good” and “bad” movies. I’m not surprised to hear that a silly film was based on a silly, unsatisfying book.
I never saw the movie, although I vaguely remember. The witchy magic parts are very much a minor part of the novel.
Thanks for the review — I guess that one won’t be going on the list.
I don’t know. I could be being too tough on it, but the moral issues bothered me, because they are ignored. If someone even thought about them, then that might be different.
Agreed
Maybe she has better ones? I know that Ariel loved The Dovekeepers. I have not read Alice Hoffman yet though I see her books everywhere.
Yeah, unfortunately, this was my first foray into Hoffman. I know that she is very popular, but I don’t know whether a different book would be better. Usually, when I really don’t like a book, I’m not inclined to try another by the same author, but that can be a mistake.
Good point…you probably glimpsed enough into her style to know whether she fits your tastes. Anyway, there are too many books out there that I understand what you mean about moving on to another author.
This is what I’m struggling with. I didn’t like this book, and here is what the NY Times reviewer says about The Dovekeepers: “You could call it a hoopla sandwich. On the back cover, a blurb from a famous, widely respected author describing the novel as “a major contribution to 21st-century literature.” On the jacket flap, a publisher’s summary proclaiming this book to be the writer’s “masterpiece.” Yet in between, instead of a gripping work of fiction that lives up to this praise, is a long novel full of middling descriptions, hackneyed characters and histrionic plot twists.”
Ha, I like that – “Hoopla sandwich”! Seems like people are having extreme reactions to this book. My guess is that you will be in the NYT camp….
It was funny, wasn’t it?