[In the following review of By Land, By Sea, Merritt praises Hoffman's abilities as a literary craftsman and poignant storyteller.]

William Hoffman is an old-fashioned writer, and this seems to account for both the pleasures of his stories and for some of their annoying traits.

Being an old-fashioned writer from Virginia—Hoffman lives in Charlotte County and was for seven years writer-in-residence at Hampden-Sydney College—means that these stories are close to the land and occasionally to the Chesapeake Bay, and they belong to the sense of place that has always played such an important role in Southern literature.

Being an old-fashioned writer from the South also means that many of Hoffman's stories tend to be a bit overdone in their use of words. Southerners tend to love a good adjective, and if they can find two, three or four, then all the better. It can get a bit annoying, but then that's part of the genre.

Beyond all of this, however, Hoffman's dozen stories [in By Land, By Sea] display an honest compassion for the people he creates on the page. In their clashes between values of the past and present, in their struggle to retain their ties to the land and sea at times when the modern world seems opposed to such simple concerns, and in their struggle to maintain a sense of self and family, Hoffman delivers stories that stand with the purest of Southern literary ideals.

Some of these stories have appeared in prestigious reviews—Sewanee Review and the Virginia Quarterly Review—while others have made it to the slicker world of Atlantic Monthly and McCalls, but the voices, for all their variety, remain consistent.

It is an aging manufacturer who tells us the story of “Lover” as he desperately attempts to regain his youth through an unrealistic relationship with a young girl. Then it's a fisherman's wife who watches the comings and goings of a young couple in “Moorings.”

“Landfall,” which may be the class entry of the collection, is a sad story of an ailing, elderly couple as they make a last trip on the beloved sailboat they're about to sell. On what begins as a harmless cruise along the New England coast, we gradually see how the boat is the thing that has held the marriage together all these years, and when this final voyage takes them into an ice storm, neither has the will to do battle with nature.

Battles play an important subtext to many of the stories. “Cuttings” is the story of a decorated Vietnam veteran who must overcome the softness of the Southern city by reproving his bravery against the white oak that has died and threatens his beach cottage. And in “Patriot,” the enemy of a coal miner is not of a physical nature but rather the destructive values that seek to erode his love of the country.

Even the weakest of Hoffman'’s people display the strengths of the Southern tradition. The sick and cynical former convict of “Smoke” must come to live with his sister's family and, through one of those rare quirks of nature, manages to instill a new sense of honor in those for whom he has only represented shame.

And in “The Question of Rain,” a minister who has always backed his faith with an intellectual sophistication must redefine his relationship not only to his congregation but also to his faith when he is asked to hold a special service to pray for rain.

While so much contemporary fiction features the crumbling weaknesses of modern life, perhaps the greatest attribute of these old-fashioned efforts is the willpower and the survival of the spirit that these people represent.

Hoffman is a craftsman. With his eye for detail, his simplicity of dialogue and in the poignant clarity of his messages, he shows us not only a South as it was, but also a South as it is. An added fascination is how Hoffman's people are Virginia people, living in places that will be familiar to readers of the Piedmont and the Bay.