Alice Hoffman’s enchanting novel, Practical Magic, revolves around the lives of two sisters, Sally and Gillian Owens, who
were orphaned as children and raised by their two witchy aunts, Frances and Jet. The book has been made into a film starring Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman.
Sally and Gillian are complete opposites. Sally is the responsible one, while Gillian is the reckless free spirit. Neither one of them is particularly lucky in love. Gillian goes through a string of dead-end marriages, and Sally only finds love for a short time before her husband, Michael, is hit by a car and killed, leaving her to raise their two daughters.
Ironically, Aunt Frances and Aunt Jet specialize in working love
spells for
people who need some help when it comes to matters of the heart. Unfortunately, these spells sometimes backfire, and Sally and Gillian learn from an early age how dangerous love magic can be when it is used to manipulate people.
Being labeled as witches means that the Owens women are virtually outcasts in their town. To prevent her daughters from suffering this fate, Sally moves far away so that she and her girls can have a new life, one that is more normal.
Sally’s enforced suburban bliss is shattered when Gillian shows up one night with her dead boyfriend, Jimmy, whom she thinks she accidentally killed with an overdose of nightshade. Reluctantly, Sally agrees to help her sister dispose of the body.
Hoffman’s writing has a kind of modern fairy tale quality to it, with her beautifully written narrative and her vivid descriptions of nature and the world in which her characters live. A fine example of this is the way she describes the night when there was a ring around the moon, the night of Gillian’s arrival at Sally’s house.
After being haunted by Jimmy’s ghost and taking part in a type of exorcism performed by the aunts, Sally and Gillian both finally find true love and learn to appreciate the bond that they share as sisters, and, just like in a fairy tale, they live happily ever after.