The Snow Child by Eowyn IveyMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
"We are allowed to do that, are we not? To invent our own endings and choose joy over sorrow?"
Trigger Warning: The book starts with a suicide attempt quite unlike any I've ever read depicted. And the rest is a story of quiet and steely courage. Having confronted the darkest abyss, there's nowhere to go but upwards, to the light.
Jack and Mabel are a couple in their fifties who move to Alaska in 1920, eager to escape their past. But when a mysterious child comes into their lives, they soon discover that parenting just might be harder than the physical challenges of eking out a living in an unforgiving landscape.
I have a feeling that this book will be better appreciated by mothers.
Being a single woman of a certain age, I can only express admiration for Ivey's prose. But then, since I happened to read this book after her second novel (To The Bright Edge of the World -- which I LOVED), I couldn't help but compare the two books and found the second one far superior to the first.
Ivey writes of motherhood's challenges and deepest tragedies in a way that seems to say, "You are stronger than you know. And you are not alone." Her heroines start off as gently brought up young ladies unsuited for the wilderness of Alaska, but then they dig within and do what we women do remarkably well: adapt.
Her heroines are women I would like to become, someday. They become masters of their fate.
I liked that the protagonist was in her fifties. Not many novels feature older women, which is a shame. They possess a confidence and wisdom that I long to have, someday. Aging like an Ivey heroine is something to aspire to!
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