Blackbird House by Alice Hoffman is the story of a farm house built in the outermost reaches of Cape Cod, Massachusetts in 1778. Beginning with its construction and taking us right up until the present day, each chapter contains the story of another generation of inhabitants who live at the farm house. The writing style often reads like a fairytale or fable with interconnected short stories that manage to convey much meaning.
At the beginning of each chapter we meet the next generation of occupants, quite often related or connected to the previous character/s. For instance Violet - a greedy and self-described ugly young girl who reads books as though she were eating apples, core and all - from the previous story becomes the mother in the next one and so on.
The reader notices the shifting times, with events like the first automobile to arrive in town in 1908. The driver was honking the horn so loudly that sea fowl and hunting dogs took up the racket, apples tumbled from the trees and milkweed was blown off its stalks.
I enjoyed the stories of how each of the incumbents found the house, and many of them felt like destiny or fate:
"People buy houses for all sorts of reasons, for shelter, for solace, for love, for investment. Katherine and Sam bought their summer house because they were drowning, and this was the first solid ground they thought they might be able to hold on to." Page 187The author's description of the farm added to the narrative, and I could easily imagine the turnips, sweet peas, peach trees and summer raspberries growing on the farm; although I had to strain to imagine the red pear tree but won't forget it in a hurry.
Blackbirds - and a white one in particular - keep cropping up throughout the book and they take on different meanings for different characters. For Maya they were bad luck:
"Everyone knows a white blackbird is nothing more than a ghost, a shadow of what it ought to be." Page 154The ramshackle farm is a welcome refuge for some, but takes on a darker meaning for the locals who believed it's haunted; and maybe it is. The house has witnessed births and tragedies over the generations and some years it even sits vacant. But eventually new owners and occupants arrive who overlook the outdoor toilet and leaking roof and decide to put down roots and establish a home there.
Set over a span of more than 200 years, Blackbird House by Alice Hoffman is surprisingly short at only 225 pages, but highly recommended for readers of historical fiction who enjoy feel good stories where the house is the main character. The overarching narrative explores themes of love and loss while also acknowledging the passage of time.
