The Probable Future by Alice Hoffman was a New York Times Best Seller a few years ago. A novel that weaves the stories of three generations of women together and to their family history, it takes a close look at the dynamics of mother-daughter relationships, choices, and the future. Alice Hoffman’s prose is elegant at times. However, the characters chronically behaved unwisely, which required substantial patience to wade through and prevented character-reader connection. Although the characters and situations failed appeal to me, I can envision them appealing to some readers. Ultimately, this novel struck me as a book that is a question of personal taste and preference.
Content Analysis:
Profanity/Language: 14 religious exclamations; 28 mild obscenities; 1 religious profanity; 7 derogatory names; 8 scatological words; 5 anatomical terms. 2 F-word derivatives.
Violence/Gore: Second hand report of drowning; baby’s shoulder purposely broken to permit birth; second hand reports of death by natural means and illness; second hand report of characters shooting arrows and hitting another character while teasing; several reports of violence in the past in stories; report of a murder; premonitions of/involving violent death; character hit with oar resulting in severe injury; death by insect stings.
Sex/Nudity: A character is an unfaithful husband and there are many references throughout the book to affairs and sex with different individuals (no details); general reference to sex in dreams (no details); a character begins her period; it is implied that teenagers spent the night together/had sex; a married character publicly gropes a student at a party; teenagers make out; implied illegitimate child; implied affair of a character; a character recalls having sex under a table as a teenager (no details); a reference to having sex in the 8th grade; a character removes clothing and climbs into bed with another character, sex implied (no details); a character asks another character if they are sleeping with someone.
Mature Subject Matter:
Death, Illness, Murder, Divorce, Marriage Infidelity.
Alcohol / Drug Use:
Teenagers and adults have wine with dinner. Teenagers smoke. An adult recalls doing drugs when a teenager. Adults discuss teenager that is having problems with drugs.
