The Probable Future

Weird, sullen, spiky women with strange powers, oddities among humankind, yet nevertheless wholly real - these are the stuff of Hoffman's latest book, set in in a world that dips in and out of dreamtime and reality in Unity, Massachusetts. She creates an unforgettable mood with her writing, setting her characters in a lush, languid town where plants are beautiful and poisonous and the countryside always presents a threat. The Sparrows are a strange lot; like a rural watered-down Adams family, kinking and winding their way through troubled lives, dishing out doom and portents and witchery wherever they go. The relationship between the three women - Elinor the grandmother, her daughter Jenny and granddaughter Stella - chafes and grates. The book begins with Jenny Sparrow, dreamer of other people's dreams, whose marriage to dissolute, lying, dope-smoking Will is now over. The one good thing from their relationship is daughter Stella, whom Jenny dotes on with sickening intensity. Stella is now 13, and a contemporary, sulky girl with a rebellious mind of her own. But Stella is no ordinary child; she has the Sparrow heritage and that means a dubious psychic gift. In her case, it's the ability to see a person's future, how they will die. When Stella foresees the murder of a woman in a diner and tells her father, he goes to the police, where instead of being believed he finds that the crime has already happened and he is arrested for the murder instead. It would be a mistake to think this is a plot-driven book; it's not, but the sheer skill in the writing makes each page full of expectation. Hoffman writes about relationships, the slow changes of life and character, loss and love and the healing of family wounds. All this is set in a countryside which mirrors the light and shade of life, a land of snapping turtles, the incessant drone of bees on hot afternoons, and the dream of a blue rose. It's a beautiful and moving book, deep and literary and lingering long in the memory. (Kirkus UK)