Hoffman, Alice 1952-

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HOFFMAN, Alice 1952-

PERSONAL: Born March 16, 1952, in New York, NY; married Tom Martin (a writer); children: Jake, Zack. Education: Adelphi University, B.A., 1973; Stanford University, M.A., 1975.

ADDRESSES: Home—Brookline, MA. Agent—Elaine Markson Literary Agency, 44 Greenwich Ave., New York, NY 10011.

CAREER: Writer, 1975—.

AWARDS, HONORS: Mirelles fellow, Stanford University, 1975; Bread Loaf fellowship, summer, 1976; Notable Books of 1979 list, Library Journal, for The Drowning Season.

WRITINGS:

NOVELS

Property Of, Farrar, Straus (New York, NY), 1977.

The Drowning Season, Dutton (New York, NY), 1979.

Angel Landing, Putnam (New York, NY), 1980.

White Horses, Putnam (New York, NY), 1982.

Fortune's Daughter, Putnam (New York, NY), 1985.

Illumination Night, Putnam (New York, NY), 1987.

At Risk, Putnam (New York, NY), 1988.

Seventh Heaven, Putnam (New York, NY), 1990.

Turtle Moon, Berkley (New York, NY), 1993

Second Nature, Putnam (New York, NY), 1994.

Practical Magic, Putnam (New York, NY), 1995.

Here on Earth, Putnam (New York, NY), 1997.

The River King, Putnam (New York, NY), 2000.

Blue Diary, Putnam (New York, NY), 2001.

The Probable Future, Doubleday (New York, NY), 2003.

Blackbird House, Doubleday (New York, NY), 2004.

FOR CHILDREN

Fireflies, illustrated by Wayne McLoughlin, Hyperion (New York, NY), 1997.

Horsefly, illustrated by Steve Johnson, Hyperion (New York, NY), 2000.

Aquamarine, Scholastic (New York, NY), 2001.

Indigo, Scholastic (New York, NY), 2002.

Green Angel, Scholastic (New York, NY), 2003.

(With Wolfe Martin) Moondog, illustrated by Yumi Heo, Scholastic (New York, NY), 2004.

OTHER

Independence Day (screenplay), Warner Bros., 1983.

Local Girls (short stories), Putnam (New York, NY), 1999.

Also author of other screenplays. Contributor of stories to Ms., Redbook, Fiction, American Review, and Playgirl.

ADAPTATIONS: Practical Magic was adapted by Robin Swicord, Akiva Goldsman, and Adam Brooks into a film directed by Griffin Dunne, starring Sandra Bullock, Nicole Kidman, and Aidan Quinn, and released by Warner Bros. in 1998; a sound recording was produced of Local Girls.

SIDELIGHTS: Through the course of numerous novels, Alice Hoffman's work has been characterized by "a shimmering prose style, the fusing of fantasy and realism, [and] the preoccupation with the way the mythic weaves itself into the everyday," Alexandra Johnson summarized in the Boston Review. "Hoffman's narrative domain is the domestic, the daily. Yet her vision—and voice—are lyrical," the critic continues. "She is a writer whose prose style is often praised as painterly, and, indeed, Hoffman's fictional world is like a Vermeer: a beautifully crafted study of the interior life." Hoffman's characters "tend to be rebels and eccentrics," Stella Dong stated in a Publishers Weekly interview with the author. Hoffman explained that she writes about such people "because they're outsiders and to some extent, we all think of ourselves as outsiders. We're looking for that other person—man, woman, parent or child—who will make us whole." As the author once told CA: "I suppose my main concern is the search for identity and continuity, and the struggle inherent in that search."

The protagonist of Hoffman's first novel, Property Of, for instance, is an unnamed seventeen-year-old girl enamored of McKay, the leader of an urban gang involved in violence and drugs; the story of their year-long relationship is what Times Literary Supplement contributor Zachary Leader called "a sort of punk or pop-gothic Jane Eyre." Despite the "harsh and gritty" quality of the world it portrays, Property Of is nevertheless "a remarkably envisioned novel, almost mythic in its cadences, hypnotic," Richard R. Lingeman observed in the New York Times. "McKay and the heroine are like tragic lovers in a courtly romance played out in candy stores, clubhouses and mean streets....Hoffman imbues her juvenile delinquents with a romantic intensity that lifts them out of sociology." Edith Milton offered a similar assessment, commenting in the Yale Review that "the narrative is engrossing because Hoffman creates characters touched by legend." The critic further elaborated that Hoffman is able to balance "parody and sentiment, cutting her own flights of panting prose with acid self-mockery."

While the writing in Property Of "had speed, wit, and a mordant lyricism," Margo Jefferson remarked in Ms. that "The Drowning Season has extravagance and generosity as well." Tracing "a legacy of lovelessness from frozen White Russia to modern New York," as Newsweek contributor Jean Strouse described it, The Drowning Season follows Esther the White and Esther the Black, a grandmother and granddaughter who overcome a past of failed communication to slowly establish a relationship. Like Hoffman's first novel, The Drowning Season functions on two levels, as Susan Wood suggested in the Washington Post: "The Drowning Season, just as hypnotic and mythic in its language and rhythms, reverberates with situations and characters that suggest ancient myths and European folk tales and seems on one level to function as a symbolic, allegorical tale in a modern setting. Yet it is very much a novel about believable and imperfect human beings, as concrete and individualized as the family next door." Barry Siegel found Esther the White in particular "a truly compelling character," writing in the Los Angeles Times Book Review that while "she is the source of her family's malaise . . . Hoffman sees in her something much more complex than a villain." The critic concluded that Hoffman "is a superb writer who brings us to understand and to care about all her characters....Hoffman at all times remains in control of her fine narrative."

Hoffman followed The Drowning Season with Angel Landing, a romance set near a nuclear power plant, and White Horses, the story of a young girl's obsession with her older brother. Teresa, the protagonist of White Horses, has been brought up hearing the family legend of the Arias, dangerous and beautiful young outlaws who carry women off to exciting lives; this legend led Teresa's mother into an unhappy marriage, and Teresa herself into an incestuous love for Silver, whom she sees as her ideal Aria. "Incest may be the most difficult theme for a novelist to undertake," stated Newsweek reviewer Peter S. Prescott, "yet Hoffman here makes it tolerable by the mythic mold in which she has cast her story." New York Times Book Review contributor Anne Tyler likewise saw a mythic dimension in the novel: "White Horses combines the concrete and the dreamlike. Its characters are people we think we recognize at first; but then on second thought we're not so sure." The critic continued, "There's an almost seamless transition from the real to the unreal, back and forth and back again." Stephanie Vaughn, however, faulted the novel's symbolism as "ask[ing] us to see an epic dimension that the story does not quite deliver," as she remarked in her Washington Post review. And while Tyler also thought that the novel is at times "burdened by the very musicality that was so appealing in the beginning," she admitted that "these are quibbles, and very minor quibbles at that. The overall impression is one of abundant life, masterfully orchestrated by the author." White Horses, Tyler concluded, "is a satisfying novel, at the same time mysterious and believable, and it marks a significant advance for Alice Hoffman."

While Fortune's Daughter, in the vein of Hoffman's earlier novels, "has the quality of folk tale—of amazing events calmly recounted," Perri Klass asserted in the New York Times Book Review that unlike White Horses it has "no . . . explicit myth. Instead, the sense of magic and elemental force arises from the central mystery of childbirth." Klass continued, "This novel's great strength lies in its two heroines, who both find themselves drawn, without plans, hopes or full understanding, into the inevitably mythological process of pregnancy and childbirth." Rae, pregnant with her first child, has just been deserted by the man for whom she left her home and traveled across a continent. Seeking reassurance, she finds Lila, a fortune teller who reads a child's death in Rae's tea leaves. Against Lila's wishes, Rae enlists the older woman's assistance with her pregnancy, evoking Lila's memories of the child she gave up for adoption over twenty years ago. The result, observed Robin Hemley in the Chicago Tribune Book World, is "an elegant and evocative novel that conjures up a kind of modern-day female mythology."

Some critics, however, such as Boston Review contributor Patricia Meyer Spacks, felt the plot of Fortune's Daughter verges on "soap-opera sentimentalities." Nevertheless, they acknowledge, as Klass wrote, that "the peculiar offbeat humor keeps the narrative from drifting into melodrama." The critic elaborated, "It is in its juxtaposition of the mythic, the apocalyptic, with the resolutely ordinary, in its portrait of eccentric characters living in a very familiar world, that this novel finds its unique voice. It is beautifully and matter-of-factly told, and it leaves the reader with an almost bewildered sense that this primal mythological level does exist in everyday reality, and that there is no event, from the standard miracle of childbirth to the most bizarre magic imaginable, that cannot occur in a setting of familiar, everyday details."

"Illumination Night, Hoffman's sixth novel, is in many ways her most subtle," Johnson claimed, describing it as "a powerful if often disturbing look at the interior lives, domestic and emotional, of a young family and the teenage girl set on destroying them all." Andre and Vonny are a young couple concerned about their son's lack of growth and the tension in their marriage caused by the unwanted attentions of Jody, a neighboring sixteen-year-old, towards Andre. "This may sound like soap opera," New York Times critic Christopher Lehmann-Haupt declared, but Hoffman "has enough power of empathy to make her characters matter to us. Daringly mixing comedy with tragedy, and the quotidian with the fabulous, she has created a narrative that somehow makes myth out of the sticky complexities of contemporary marriage." Hoffman "has a penchant for finding a near-gothic strangeness and enchantment on the edges of everyday experience," Jack Sullivan likewise commented in the Washington Post Book World. Throughout the book "is the sure sense that magic and spirituality infuse our lives, and that this magic is as readily available to the poor as to the rich," Los Angeles Times critic Carolyn See similarly reported.

"Subtle touches here and there make this intelligent novel shine," Gwyneth Cravens maintained in the New York Times Book Review. "Ms. Hoffman knows how to tell a story in clear language and how to avoid subordinating the meanderings of temperament to logic or plot. The characters suddenly, and believably, change their behavior toward one another in the presence of the irrational." Other critics have also remarked on the quality of the author's characterizations. Lehmann-Haupt, for example, observed that "Hoffman writes so simply about human passions that her characters are branded onto one's memory," while London Times reviewer Philip Howard stated that Hoffman "hits bull's eyes on the incomprehensions between the young and the old, on the magic and pain of ordinary life." As Candice Russell noted in her Chicago Tribune review, the author's "omniscient voice . . . explores the underpinnings of her characters, who become increasingly connected and interdependent." Sullivan similarly praised Hoffman's narrative for its "unusually fluid form of subjectivity that becomes a kind of total omniscience . . . without breaking the rhythm of her prose or storyline. From a technical as well as emotional standpoint," the critic concluded, "this is an impressive, stirring performance."

With At Risk, the story of a young girl whose AIDS precipitates a family crisis, Hoffman "is mainstreaming a refined literary talent," Time writer R. Z. Sheppard recounted. By taking as her subject such a topical social concern, however, Hoffman has drawn criticism from some reviewers for letting the issue of AIDS overcome the story. Washington Post writer Jonathan Yardley, for example, contended that the novel "is very much wrought from material offered by the headlines, yet it fails to shape that material into anything approximating life." But Lehmann-Haupt believed that At Risk "does succeed in overcoming these obstacles [of topicality]. From its opening sentence, we know we are in a world that is specific and alive."

Because the issues in At Risk are more self-evident than in the author's other work, some reviewers have suggested that the novel does not contain as much of a "magical" element as do her other books. But Newsweek critic Laura Shapiro contended that "this wonderful book isn't markedly different in style or imagination from Hoffman's last novel." As Chicago Tribune Books contributor Michele Souda observed, the novel contains many "dark and bizarre experiences that remind us how much Hoffman has always trusted her characters' dreams and how well she has invented them." And, as the author explained to London Times writer Catherine Bennett, "part of the reason [for the diminished emphasis on magic] is that AIDS took the place of that, that was the inexplicable part of it. AIDS is like something you'd invent, it's bizarre, it's horrible, it's kind of like a spaceship—this disease just landing. I felt that anything else I was going to add was going to reduce it." The result, concluded Souda, is that Hoffman "has taken the nightmare of our time, stripped it of statistics and social rhetoric, and placed it in the raw center of family life."

In Seventh Heaven Hoffman returns again to the illusive quiet of suburbia, this time in 1959—the cusp of a new, noisier era. Into a seemingly idyllic New York community comes Nora Silk, a divorced woman whose unconventional manner disturbs the peaceful facade of the neighborhood. Nora is struggling to begin a new life and be a good mother to her children; she has little concern for what her neighbors think of her, giving her a freedom others resent. But as she gradually adjusts to her surroundings, so does the community begin to accept her and overcome their own inhibitions. "Hoffman is out to remind us that all those suburban stereotypes, creaky facades though they may often be, are propped up by some very real, and very basic, hopes and fears," Alida Becker remarked in the New York Times Book Review. The novel contains "many of the plot twists you'd expect from a late-fifties's melodrama," the critic continued, adding that "what's unexpected, though, is the wonderful blend of humor, shrewdness and compassion that Ms. Hoffman brings to these familiar scenes."

Detroit News contributor Alice Vachss likewise praised the author's writing: "Hoffman's usual abilities—her enchanting storytelling and her gift for interweaving magic and realism—are even more finely honed than in her previous novels." Hoffman's mystical elements are effectively incorporated into Seventh Heaven, according to some critics. As People reviewer Ralph Novak commented, the author "makes greater use of the supernatural—or the allure of the supernatural—without compromising her insight into human behavior." This insight is considerable, for "Hoffman has intuitive grasp of the thoughts and feelings that are masked by conventional behavior," a Publishers Weekly critic noted, commending in particular the author's "unerring understanding of people of nearly every age and across a broad social spectrum." Seventh Heaven, asserted Shapiro, "is one of the rare novels so abundant with life it seems to overflow its own pages....Hoffman has always enjoyed a coterie of devoted fans, but her immensely winning novels deserve a much wider readership. Seventh Heaven, her eighth and best, confirms her place as one of the finest writers of her generation."

Turtle Moon and Second Nature, Hoffman's next two novels, again feature single women struggling to define life on their own terms. The novels are also infused with Hoffman's trademark use of magic and heightened realism. Turtle Moon is set in a sleepy Florida town with a large population of divorced women and follows the exploits of Bethany, a woman who has fled with her infant daughter from a child-custody fight; Lucy Rosen, a single mother; her son, Keith, a mean boy who bullies his peers and who steals at will; Julian Cash, an acerbic, taciturn policeman; and Julian's dog, Arrow, who shares his owner's temperament. The story revolves around the disappearance of Keith with Bethany's baby and the quest to solve a local murder. Reviewing the work in the New York Times Book Review, Frederick Busch averred that "Hoffman writes quite wonderfully about the magic in our lives and in the battered, indifferent world. I don't know that she's written better." New York Times daily reviewer Michiko Kakutani had a less enthusiastic view of the book, however, saying that it "showcases Hoffman's assurance as a writer, and her less admirable penchant for situating her characters in a slick, tricked-up plot that's decorated with pointlessly whimsical asides."

Second Nature is a tale about a wild man raised by wolves who brings love and joy to a lonely woman's suburban world. New York Times Book Review contributor Howard Frank Mosher called the novel "magical and daring" and commented that the book is written "with grace and beauty, making it at once [Hoffman's] richest and wisest, as well as her boldest, novel to date." Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, another critic for the daily New York Times, thought Second Nature's premise about the conflict between nature and so-called civilization "familiar almost to the point of cliche," but liked some aspects of the story, "many of whose complications are richly ambiguous."

Hoffman's eleventh novel, Practical Magic, is set in a small Massachusetts town and features a matriarchal dynasty, the Owenses. Specifically, the novel focuses on two Owens sisters, Gillian and Sally, and the aunts who raise them. As children, Gillian and Sally sneak down from bed to listen as their aunts prescribe love potions for the town women. Determined not to suffer from any such lovesickness when they grow older, the girls take differing paths. Gillian becomes a promiscuous vagabond who never marries or has children, while dutiful Sally survives the death of her husband and subordinates her own desires to those of her daughters. Terming Practical Magic "a particularly arch and dexterous example of [Hoffman's] narrative powers," Times Literary Supplement reviewer Lorna Sage concluded that "Hoffman spins out the intrigue with show-off skill." Writing in the New York Times Book Review, Mark Childress noted that "Hoffman's trademark narrative voice is upbeat, breathless and rather bouncy. She creates vivid characters, she keeps things moving along, and she's not above using sleight of hand and prestidigitation to achieve her considerable effects."

Here on Earth deals with a married woman, March Murray, who becomes involved with an old lover, Hollis, when she comes back from California to her native Massachusetts for a funeral. It has echoes of Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights. Hollis, for instance, resembles Bronte's dark, brooding Heathcliff. New York Times Book Review contributor Karen Karbo found it implausible that a smart, modern woman like March would resume a relationship with Hollis, and thought the course of their affair sadly predictable. "The madness of being madly in love is one of the most difficult subjects to write about convincingly," Karbo observed. "And you've got to give Hoffman points for trying. Unfortunately, just as March is too good for Hollis, Hoffman is too good for a story like this."

Local Girls is Hoffman's first collection of short stories, which are linked by their characters, members of a dysfunctional Long Island family, the Samuelsons. They follow the key character, Gretel, over roughly a decade of her life, beginning in her teen years. As she grows to womanhood, the intelligent, observant Gretel has to cope with troubles, including her parents' bitter divorce, her brother's drug addiction, and her mother's serious illness. Like many of Hoffman's other works, Local Girls has a strong element of female bonding—Gretel's best friend, Jill, and cousin Margot are her main sources of emotional support—and touches of magical realism. Redbook contributor Rose Martelli observed that Hoffman "turns [the Samuelsons'] trials into a celebration of family, revealing what it takes to brave real crises together." A Publishers Weekly reviewer noted that Hoffman's "disarming wit" keeps the tales from becoming depressing, adding, "she indicates that the human spirit can survive despite the cruel workings of fate." "These stories sometimes have a sketchy feel," noted Library Journal critic Barbara Hoffert. New York Times Book Review commentator Sarah Ferguson stated, "The stories suffer from a debilitating overlap when they're read as a collection. As in a soap opera, where any episode may be the viewer's first, background information is repeated and characters are reintroduced ad nauseam."

Hoffman again used interconnected stories in Blackbird House, a book in which the common bond of the stories is a Cape Cod farmhouse. For reviewer Ellen Shapiro, writing for People, this was problematic, "When all the dust settles, it is the house itself that emerges as the book's enduring—and inspiring—character." Other reviews, such as the one in Publishers Weekly praised the book: "Hoffman's lyrical prose weaves an undeniable spell."

The River King revolves around Haddan School, an exclusive preparatory academy in a picturesque small town in Massachusetts. The plot turns on an investigation into the death of a student named Gus Pierce, a "Holden Caulfield-like misfit," as Entertainment Weekly reviewer George Hodgman put it. Local police officer Abel Grey suspects that Gus's drowning was no accident or suicide, but murder, and in the course of his detective work he becomes attracted to photography teacher Betsy Chase, who is engaged to another Haddan faculty member. Meanwhile, Carlin Leander, a scholarship student who had befriended Gus, encounters what she believes to be his ghost. "The puzzle of the drowning helps propel Hoffman's at times meandering narrative, but she's more interested in the mysteries of love, the crimes of the heart," observed Nancy Pate in the Orlando Sentinel. A Publishers Weekly reviewer praised The River King as "a many-layered morality tale" and Hoffman as "an inventive author with a distinctive touch," while Booklist contributor Donna Seaman credited the author with "illuminating the power of emotion and the exquisite mysteries of life." Hodgman, however, was less impressed, finding some of the characters sketchily drawn, "basic romantic types," although he felt Hoffman "does a nice job of weaving together a meandering tapestry of plots." Amanda Fortini, writing in the New York Times Book Review, had a similar take, applauding Hoffman's "good old-fashioned storytelling" but deeming her characters "so numerous that she rarely has time to develop them beyond mere tag lines." Library Journal critic Reba Leiding deemed the novel a bit too atmospheric: "One wishes Hoffman had pared down the precious local descriptions and allowed the plot, which has some unexpected twists, to shine through." Pate, though, concluded that Hoffman "is a writer who can cast a spell."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Contemporary Literary Criticism, Volume 51, Gale (Detroit, MI), 1989.

PERIODICALS

Belles Lettres, summer, 1992, p. 20.

Book, May-June 2003, Kristin Kloberdanz, review of Green Angel, p. 31; May-June 2003, Chris Bohjalian, "Girl Power," pp. 69-71.

Booklist, March 15, 1999, Brad Hooper, review of Local Girls, January 1, 2000, review of Local Girls, p. 819; March 15, 2000, Mary McCay, review ofLocal Girls, Practical Magic, and Angel Landing, pp. 1396-1397; April 15, 2000, Donna Seaman, review of The River King, p. 1500; March 1, 2003, Donna Seaman, review of The Probable Future, pp. 1107-1108 April 15, 2003, Gillian Engberg, review of Green Angel, pp. 69-71; May 15, 2004, Donna Seaman, review of Blackbird House, p. 1519; June 1, 2004, Ilene Cooper, review of Mondog, pp. 1742-1743.

Boston Review, September, 1985; October, 1987.

Chicago Tribune, August 31, 1987, Candice Russell, review of Illumination Night.

Chicago Tribune Book World, May 5, 1985, Robin Hemley, review of Fortune's Daughter.

Cosmopolitan, February, 1994.

Detroit News, September 5, 1990, Alice Vachss, review of Seventh Heaven.

Entertainment Weekly, October 23, 1998, review of film Practical Magic, p. 47; July 16, 1999, p. 62; August 4, 2000, George Hodgman, "Alice's Wonders," p. 78; June 27, 2003, Amy Feitelberg, "The Probable Future: Anne Hoffman Mystical Fiction," p. 142; July 23, 2004, Henry Goldblatt, review of Blackbird House, p. 81.

Globe and Mail (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), August 25, 1990.

Horn Book, March-April, 2003, Lauren Adams, review of Green Angel, pp. 211-213.

Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, November, 2003, Jean Boreen, review of Green Angel, pp. 271-273.

Kirkus Reviews, September 1, 1997, review of Fireflies; March 15, 2003, review of The Probable Future, p. 418; May 15, 2004, review of Blackbird House, p. 461; July 1, 2004, review of Moondog, p. 631.

Kliatt, July, 2003, Lesley S. J. Dr. Farmer, "Water Tales, two novels; Aquamarine and Indigo," p. 32; July, 2004, Janet Julian, review of The Probable Future, p. 19.

Library Journal, May 15, 1999, Barbara Hoffert, review of Local Girls, p. 130; December, 1999, Rochelle Ratner, review of Local Girls, p. 205; April 1, 2000, Joyce Kessel, review of Angel Landing, p. 150; May 15, 2000, Reba Leidling, review of The River King, p. 124; March 15, 2003, Starr E. Smith, review of of The Probable Future, p. 114.

London Review of Books, August 6, 1992, p. 19.

Los Angeles Times, December 5, 1980; May 28, 1982; May 9, 1985; August 24, 1987; June 30, 1988.

Los Angeles Times Book Review, August 19, 1979; July 10, 1988; August 5, 1990; May 28, 1995, p. 1.

Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, April, 1994; December, 1995, p. 46.

Ms., August, 1979; May, 1982; June, 1985.

Nation, November 26, 1990.

Newsweek, May 23, 1977; April 12, 1982; August 1, 1988; August 20, 1990.

New Yorker, May 3, 1982; July 15, 1985; July 27, 1992; April 11, 1994.

New York Times, July 14, 1977; July 25, 1987; July 4, 1988; August 10, 1990; April 21, 1992, Michiko Kakutani, "Books of The Times: A Killer Strikes as Sea Turtles Fill the Streets"; February 10, 1994, Ruth Reichl, "At Home with Alice Hoffman: A Writer Set Free by Magic"; February 24, 1994, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, "Books of The Times: A Wilderness Child Confronts Civilization," p. C19.

New York Times Book Review, July 15, 1979; November 9, 1980; March 28, 1982; March 24, 1985; August 9, 1987; July 17, 1988; August 5, 1990; April 26, 1992, Frederick Busch, "The Soul Is Part of the Action"; February 6, 1994, p. 13; June 25, 1995, p. 25; September 14, 1997, Karen Karbo, "Heathcliff Redux"; June 13, 1999, Sarah Ferguson, "Islanders," p. 31; July 16, 2000, Amanda Fortini, "The Spirit Moves Him."

Orlando Sentinel, August 2, 2000, Nancy Pate, review of The River King.

People, September 3, 1990; September 5, 1994, p. 34; July 3, 1995, p. 31; August 14, 2000; July 26, 2004, p. 47; August 11, 2003, p. 41; July 26, 2004, p. 47.

Ploughshares, fall, 2003, Maryanne O'Hara, About Alice Hoffman; a profile by Maryanne O'Hara, pp. 194-198.

Publishers Weekly, April 12, 1985; June 1, 1990; February 3, 1992; November 29, 1993; January 2, 1995, p. 30; March 20, 1995, p. 40; April 22, 1996, p. 67; May 3, 1999, review of Local Girls, p. 1259; July 5, 1999, review of sound recording of Local Girls, p. 35; June 5, 2000, review of The River King, p. 71; July 31, 2000, Daisy Maryles, "Women, Women, Women," p. 21; August 14, 2000, review of Horsefly, p. 355; May 15, 2003, review of The Probable Future, p. 196; November 10, 2003, review of Green Angel, p. 37; June 21, 2004, review of Blackbird House, p. 42.

Redbook, July, 1999, Rose Martelli, "What Makes Families Strong?," p. G1.

School Library Journal, November, 1995, p. 138; July 2003, Pam Johnson, review of The Probable Future, p. 152

Time, July 18, 1988; August 6, 1990.

Times (London, England), November 28, 1985; October 1, 1987; October 1, 1988.

Times Literary Supplement, April 21, 1978; March 11, 1988; March 25, 1994, p. 21; July 5, 1996, p. 23.

Tribune Books (Chicago, IL), June 26, 1988; August 5, 1990; April 26, 1992, p. 6; February 20, 1994; August 6, 1995.

Vogue, July, 1992.

Washington Post, August 2, 1979; April 13, 1982; June 29, 1988, Jonathan Yardley, review of At Risk.

Washington Post Book World, December 21, 1980; August 2, 1987; June 4, 1995, p. 8.

Yale Review, winter, 1978, Edith Milton, review of Property Of.