The giant subsists by raising chickens and vegetables and only ventures out when it's dark to avoid being tormented. In Second Nature Stephen, having been caught in a trap, is desperate to return to his wolf brothers and yet remains in human society, with all its secrets, pretense, and complexity, because he has fallen in love. In Alice Hoffman's fiction there is a fascination with wildness, with those who have magical powers or who are in some respect different. These characters can shift civilization but, equally, are threatened by it. Desire and difficult decisions unleash primal forces, particularly floods.
Realization comes in flashes of light.
And people occasionally set each other free by making the good, unsanctioned choice. At the same time, the author treats the everyday with great reverence, infusing it with mystery. No one locked doors. The G.E. refrigerators hummed and the stars were a brilliant white. . . . A summer night lasted longer here than it did in other places.