The Invisible Hour by Alice Hoffman, published in 2023, explores themes of choice, literature, invisibility, nature, and imagination. The novel follows Mia Jacob’s journey from her escape from the insular, cult-like Community in western Massachusetts to her early adulthood in Concord and New York City. After her guardian dies of cancer, Mia travels back in time to author Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Salem, where she and Nathaniel become temporarily romantically involved. Alice Hoffman has written more than 30 works of fiction, including the popular Practical Magic series, which inspired the 1998 film of the same name. Many of her books, including The Invisible Hour, are representative of the genre of magical realism.

This guide refers to the Atria Books 2023 hardcover edition of the novel.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide discuss life in and escape from a cult, abortion, physical abuse, death and grief, and suicidal ideation.

Plot Summary

The novel opens with a description of Mia Jacob’s escape from the Community, a strict, cult-like farm led by Joel Davis. The novel then moves back in time to the teenage pregnancy of her mother, Ivy. When Mia’s father refuses to acknowledge Ivy’s pregnancy and Ivy’s parents threaten to send her away and make her give the baby up for adoption, Ivy runs away. She meets another girl named Kayla, and the teen girls take a bus to Blackwell, Massachusetts, where they are welcomed into the Community. Joel bases his society and its rules on Old Testament biblical morality. Joel inherited the property from his late wife, Carrie Oldenfield Starr, which caused a rift between Carrie and her family. Joel is immediately struck by Ivy’s beauty, and she agrees to marry him just a few months after her arrival.

The Community has strict rules, including that children belong to the Community as a whole, not to any one person or couple. Those who break the rules must wear a placard with the appropriate letter indicating their offense. Because of their connection to the biblical Eve, women are held to a higher standard; in addition to wearing the placard, they are branded with the letter of their transgression. Ivy initially sees Joel as a generous and kind man who welcomes the unhoused and lost into their Community. Joel is a savior to Ivy, who feels abandoned by her father and her boyfriend. However, when Kayla becomes pregnant with Joel’s child, she is faced with either getting an abortion or being evicted from the Community for immorality. Kayla’s attempt at a self-inflicted abortion kills her in the woods, and Ivy becomes aware of Joel’s more sinister tendencies. When Mia is born, Ivy falls deeply in love with her daughter and thinks of Mia as her own, although parental connection is against the rules. After Joel and Ivy are married, he puts his name on Mia’s birth certificate and gives Ivy a pair of red boots.

The narrative skips ahead 15 years. Mia is beginning to question the Community’s values. She finds a library in Blackwell, largely thanks to Ivy, and discovers Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, inscribed to Mia. As she secretly steals and then borrows books, the world opens for her, and she begins to plan an escape for her and her mother. Before she can convince Ivy of the plan or execute it, Ivy is killed by a runaway truck during the apple harvest. Mia is inconsolable and breaks several rules. Joel attempts to control her and get her to forget her grief, but Mia refuses to acquiesce, and her hair is cut short in punishment. One farmer’s market day, Mia intends to die by suicide by filling her pockets with rocks and walking into the river. She uses the library as a path to the river but again picks up The Scarlet Letter; reading it shows her that there is hope, and she chooses to live.

When Mia’s stash of books is discovered, the books are burned and Mia is locked in the barn, anticipating a whipping and branding the next day. She escapes the barn, running to the Blackwell Library, where Sarah Mott, the librarian, rescues her. Mia brings only her mother’s red boots, The Scarlet Letter, and a small painting she found in the Community office. Sarah brings Mia to Concord to live with Constance Allen, Sarah’s partner. Mia goes to high school, earning good grades but making few friends. She bonds with Constance, also a librarian, and spends her time volunteering at the library and visiting Hawthorne’s grave and Concord residence. Mia finds her grandmother, who is too broken by Ivy’s loss to show Mia any kindness. The family’s maid, Helen Connelly, gives Mia a letter that Ivy sent for her years before. The letter explains that Joel is not Mia’s father and that Ivy wishes she had had the courage to leave the Community and seek a better life.

Joel follows Sarah to Concord and tries to bring Mia back, claiming that she is his property. However, Mia tells him that she knows he isn’t her father, and Mia and Constance threaten to involve the police. Joel leaves but continues to harass Mia for a decade, occasionally leaving leaves from the Community’s apple trees in places she frequents. Constance and Sarah live together and make a happy family with Mia. Mia graduates and gets a job in Manhattan at the New York City Public Library. She lives alone in an apartment and feels safe in her invisibility in the city. When Constance dies of cancer, Mia visits Nathaniel Hawthorne’s grave, feeling lost, and wishes that she could meet the one man she believes she could trust.

The narrative jumps back in time to 1837 and shifts to Nathaniel’s point of view. He is depicted as a sensitive genius who is compelled to write, and although his good looks earn him a great deal of feminine attention, he often is more interested in a woman’s story than romantic involvement. His sister Elizabeth is a major force in his life. When Nathaniel is walking alone early one morning, he discovers Mia asleep in the grass.

Mia captivates Nathanial, and they fall in love. They spend their days walking in the woods, swimming in the lake, and looking at the stars. Mia stays for five days until Elizabeth meets her and convinces her that her presence in their time is bad for Nathaniel. After she disappears, Nathaniel spirals into dangerous habits. On a fishing trip with his uncle, Nathaniel rediscovers his love of language and finds comfort in his solitude in nature while fishing there.

Three months after returning to her own time, Mia is despondent. She is showing signs of pregnancy but ignores them. She stops going to work and spends her days waiting to dream of Nathaniel while she sleeps. Joel reappears, demanding that she return the painting, which is actually the deed to the Community property. Mia, in a panic, flees to Salem and returns to Nathaniel’s time to escape Joel.

Mia has breakfast with Elizabeth and Nathaniel’s other sister, Louisa, after they discover her on the sidewalk, dizzy and famished. Although Elizabeth disapproves, she tells Mia where Nathaniel is and accompanies her to the train station. Elizabeth points out to Mia that she’s pregnant, that the child is likely a daughter, and that Mia won’t be able to give her daughter choices in this time.

Mia finds Nathaniel, but when he sees her copy of The Scarlet Letter and tries to look at it, the words begin to disappear. Her presence in Nathaniel’s time is causing changes—Mia is also becoming less solid. The book saved her life, and as it degrades, so does she. Joel follows Mia to 1837, and he steals the book from their room at the inn. She agrees to trade the book for the painting, and he grants her one last night. She spends the rest of the day and night with Nathaniel, convincing him that life without her can still be beautiful and sweet. The next morning, she leaves him her mother’s letter, which will inspire The Scarlet Letter. Mia meets Joel at the barn on the Community property. He returns the book but brandishes a rifle and makes her kneel while he goes to find the painting she’s hidden in the barn. She locks him inside where the sheriff will later find him, along with several items she left to make him appear like a thief. The novel ends with Mia sitting in the meadow thinking of her and her daughter’s futures.