Casting a Spell; Alice Hoffman Waves Her Magic Wand Again

Summary

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Alice Hoffman has always been able to enchant a reader. She did it in "Turtle Moon," "Practical Magic," "The River King," and, most recently, in "The Probable Future." This time, in "The Ice Queen," she strips her vibrant 18th novel down to the basic elements of a fairy tale. It's all there. Wishes. Lies. Absent parents. Secrets. Magic. Love. Obsession. Death. Sex.

The unnamed narrator is a small-town New Jersey librarian. A self- proclaimed "devotee of death," she regularly recommends Grimms' tales over Andersen's to 8-year-old readers. Better they learn about "bones tied in silken cloth laid to rest under a juniper tree" than a world filled with "virtuous, respectable characters." She endorses the stuff of all fairy tales as "irrational, impossible, illogical." For her, the power of wishes is "invisible and inevitable."

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Casting a Spell; Alice Hoffman Waves Her Magic Wand Again

No small wonder. At age 8, she wished never to see her mother again. When she gets this wish, sh...

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