Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman

Publisher: Berkley Books, 317 pages
Format: Paperback
Source: Purchased

What it’s about: Following the sudden death of their parents who were “so much in love they failed to notice smoke emanating from the walls of the bungalow where they’d gone to enjoy a second honeymoon” (5), Sally and Gillian move in with their mysterious maiden aunts in a gothic Victorian on Magnolia Street. The young siblings are horrified to discover their aunts are free spirits who go to bed when they feel like it, dress all in black, drink gin and bitters, and live in a house with “no clocks and no mirrors and three locks on each and every door” (4).

Sally and Gillian, just like the aunts, just like all Owens women for 200 years, are shunned by the townspeople. That is, until nightfall when women appear at the kitchen door to purchase libations in hopes of making men love them or to avenge themselves against men who betray them. Eavesdropping from their perch on the back stairs, Sally and Gillian learn the ways love can control you and vow to have none of it.

Of course, such a vow is not easy to keep. As the sisters grow to adulthood, each discovers love will have its way. Sally marries and Gillian runs away.

The ghost does not appear until later in the novel, but when he does, he will wreak havoc, but also provide a pathway for love to heal and unite both lovers and sisters. It is up to them to recognize this before it’s too late.

What I thought: Over the years I have read quite a few Alice Hoffman novels. Practical Magic holds a place of honor because it was my first introduction to this wonderful author. I love the way Hoffman writes magical realism in her own style, with a lighter hand than say Gabriel Garcia Marquez or Isabel Allende. At times the reader can laugh at the antics of renegade lilac bushes and cats that follow one to school. At other times, the creeping vegetation foreshadows the emergence of the darker human emotions; i.e., love’s evil twin, envy.

I admired the author’s careful examination of multi-generational connections–namely, the aunts, Sally and Gillian, and Sally’s children Antonia and Kylie–all sisters. (Sisters is a motif author Alice Hoffman is drawn to again and again. In fact, another of her books I really like is called The Story Sisters.) Practical Magic follows a winding trajectory–what one of my professors called a baggy pants story–that spans many years and details the lives of three generations of sisters. The best thing about the ghost is how he brings the characters back together in the same space to work out the resolution (story and familial)–all three generations of sisters.

I love this Alice Hoffman novel for its joyfulness and pure light-hearted fun and the idea that love makes redemption and second changes possible with or without practical magic.