Brotherly Love

"A spectacular achievement which handles brilliantly the mysterious relationship between spirit and flesh, history and vision, intent and act, dream and reality." (Anthony Hecht) "Hoffman's Brotherly Love is his finest work, itself a trope of the city whose history it makes myth of, and redeems, urbanizing the wilderness of history and its fables. A grand poem in the American grain." (John Hollander) "A beautiful and important book which has the markings of … a landmark in our culture." (Frederick Morgan) "I have never before seen such a connection between the historical and the imaginative, nor have I encountered in many a long day such a strong and pertinent lyricism within a larger dramatic compass." (James Dickey) "Though grounded firmly in historical fact, [Brotherly Love] is very original in conception and quite effectively expresses the dreams and despairs of those who lived this history as well as our own contemporary need to understand the past as 'we clatter down the rigid rails' into the future." (Library Journal)