The Invisible Hour by Alice Hoffman

Reviewed by Wendy Lipke

Alice Hoffman is an American novelist and young-adult and children’s writer, best known for her 1995 novel Practical Magic, which was adapted for a 1998 film of the same name. Many of her works fall into the genre of magic realism and contain elements of magic, irony, and non-standard romances and relationships.

Featured in this book, The Invisible Hour, are the life stories of two women, mother and daughter. They were both to discover a love of reading, even if for one of them this was against the rules of the commune where she spent her early life. We have all read much about places like this and how often the leader was a person who set out strict rules for his followers so that he remained in control of their little patch of the world. The younger of the two women, Mia, soon realised that their leader, Joel, who had married her mother, couldn’t accept anyone who said ‘no’ to him. His philosophy was based on owning nothing, coveting nothing and forgetting no wrongs. The last part of this mantra was to play an important role in this story.

In some ways the story of the two women paralleled each other. As teenagers both leave the lives they have known in much the same way, alone and in the dark. Yet the bond between the two, though against the rules of their society, was deep and they shared the knowledge that a library was a place where there were a thousand keys to a thousand doors (226). However, for the daughter, Mia, there is one particular book which she credited with saving her life and she became obsessed with it and its author, Nathaniel Hawthorne.

In Part 2 of this book, her obsession takes her back to 1837 where she meets the author of The Scarlet Letter, which Mia believed spoke to her personally. Here she falls in love. However, she knows that if she stays too long, she will become invisible, both here and in her own world. It is in this part of the story that my interest began to fade. I found little to like in Nathaniel’s character and exactly how Mia was able to access both worlds, was not made clear. Also, if Joel, who had followed her back in time, was to be detained here, then what effect would that have on all their future lives and the storyline for the beginning of the book?

This is not a very long story, around two hundred and fifty pages and it is beautifully presented.  Divided into three parts the pages acknowledging these sections and the individual chapters are presented with a flourish. The front cover, I felt, depicted the book well with a young girl, of Mia’s description, in a white dress and long flowing red hair holding a book in her hand. She is standing in a library in front of the bookshelves which are presented in a darker manner as if to suggest she might be swallowed up by the books. The word Invisible has been cleverly made to look as if it is in fact fading away. I am still not absolutely sure what the title refers to unless it is the time Mia spends in the library knowing that if she is found out she will be punished.

Throughout the story, several sayings are repeated which probably help to link all the parts together. The final paragraph, although it refers to Mia, could also have belonged to her mother. ‘I loved you enough to find whatever awaits us…no matter where. We can go as far as we need to, even if it is west of the moon. Sometimes walking away is the bravest thing you can do. When you get there, you’ll know where you are’ (252).

This is an interesting enough story, but I doubt it will rival the stories she has written before which have heralded so much acclaim. At the end of this story the reader has been given an extract of eighteen pages of her classic work, Practical Magic.

The Invisible Hour

(2023)

by Alice Hoffman

Scribner Australia

ISBN:9 781398 528970

$32.99; 288pp

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