Blue Diary

Table of Contents

 

 

 

 

“As usual. Hoffman draws her characters with great care.”

 

“Engaging ... Hoffman is especially good at cataloguing the range of reactions that tragedies can draw ... intriguing characters.”

 

“A compelling tale that is enhanced by her lush imagery.”

 

“Her characters [are] so achingly real ... her prose so seductive.”

 

“A delectable writer ... God bless her.”
—New York Daily News

 

 

“Daringly mixing comedy with tragedy ... [Hoffman] has created a narrative that somehow makes myth out of the sticky complexities of contemporary marriage ... Her characters are branded onto one's memory.”—
The New York Times Book Review

 

“Flows as swiftly and limpidly as the Haddan River, the town's mystical waterway ... As ever, Hoffman mixes myth, magic, and reality, addressing issues of town and gown, enchanting her readers with a many-layered morality tale and proving herself once again an inventive author with a distinctive touch.”
—Publishers Weekly
(starred)

“[Hoffman] plumbs the interior lives of, among others, a drunken recluse, a heartsick teenage boy, an angry daughter, a near madman, a cuckolded husband, and three wounded women, with such modesty and skill that she seems to witness rather than invent their lives.”

—Entertainment
Weekly

 

“A good, old-fashioned love story ... Alice Hoffman's writing at its precise and heartbreaking best.”
—The Washington Post Book world

 

“She is one of the best writers we have today—insightful, funny, intelligent, with a distinctive voice ...
[Local Girls]
does a lot to show that Hoffman is an established artist at her peak.”

—
The Cleveland Plain Dealer

 

“Suspenseful ... a dark, romantic meditation on what it means to be human.”
—The New Yorker

 

“An unmistakably gifted work ... Alice Hoffman flares with talent.”

 

“Hard to put down ... full of characters who take hold of your heart.”

“Splendid ... one of her best novels.”—
Newsweek

 

“[An] intimate, lovely novel, most of whose concerns swirl about the pain and joys of motherhood.”
—People

 

 

 

“Hoffman seems certain to join such writers as Anne Tyler and Mary Gordon ... a major novelist.”—
Newsweek

 

“One of the brightest and most imaginative of contemporary writers.”

 

“Her touch is so light, her writing so luminous.”—
The Orlando Sentinel

 

“Her novels are as fluid and graceful as dreams.”

 

“A reader is in good hands with Alice Hoffman, able to count on many pleasures.”—Jane Smiley,
USA Today

 

“Alice Hoffman is a real writer who pleasures us as she teaches, distracts us from real life as she illuminates it.”—Judith Rossner

 

“With her glorious prose and extraordinary eye ... Alice Hoffman seems to know what it means to be a human being.”

—Susan Isaacs,
Newsday

 

 

 

THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
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Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

 

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

Copyright © 2001 by Alice Hoffman.

 

All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form
without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in
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BERKLEY is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
The “B” design is a trademark belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

 

 

ISBN: 9781440672774

 

 

Hoffman, Alice.
Blue diary / Alice Hoffman.
p. cm.

ISBN: 9781440672774

1. Trials (Murder)—Fiction. 2. City and town life—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3558.03447 B
813'.54—dc21

 

 

 

Please visit the author's website at
www.alicehoffman.com

Heaven belongs to the Lord,
and the earth He has entrusted to mortals.
PSALM 115

IT'S THE LAST MONDAY OF THE month, a brutally gorgeous morning brimming with blue air and the sweet scent of honeysuckle, which grows wild in the woods beyond Front Street, when Ethan Ford fails to show up for work. On this glorious day. the brilliant sky is filled with banks of motionless white clouds, fleecy as sheep, but so obedient and lazy they haven't any need of a shepherd or a fence. June in New England is a peerless month, with long days of glittering sunlight and roses unfolding. This is the season when even the most foolish of men will stop to appreciate all that is set out before him: the creamy blossoms of hollyhocks and English daisies; the heavenly swarms of bees humming like angels in the hedges, hovering over green lawns trimmed so carefully it can seem as though the hand of all that's divine has leaned down to construct a perfect patchwork. green upon green, perfection upon perfection.

On any other day, Ethan Ford would have already been hard at work, for in the town of Monroe. Massachusetts, there is not a more reliable man to be found. On the chain that he carries, he has the keys to many of the local houses, including the Howards' on Sherwood Street and the Starks' over on Evergreen. For the better part of a month, Ethan has been remodeling both homes, renovating a kitchen for the Howards, installing a second bathroom for the Starks, a family whose three daughters are known for their waist-length hair, which takes half an hour to shampoo, so that there is always a line in the hall as one or another of the Stark girls awaits her turn at the shower.

Everyone knows that if Ethan promises a job will be done on time, it will be, for he's a man of his word, as dependable as he is kind, the sort of individual who never disappears with the last ten percent of a project left undone, tiles left ungrouted, for instance. or closet doors unhung. He's an excellent carpenter, an excellent man all around; a valued member of the volunteer fire department well known for his fearlessness, a respected coach who offers more encouragement to some local children than their own parents do. Most folks who know him would not have thought any less of him had they been aware that on this day Ethan doesn't show up for work because he's in bed with his wife, whom he loves desperately, even after thirteen years of marriage, and whom he still considers to be the most beautiful woman in the Commonwealth.