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Executive Times |
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2005 Book Reviews |
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Light on
Snow by Anita Shreve |
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Rating:
•• (Mildly Recommended) |
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Click on
title or picture to buy from amazon.com |
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Melodramatic If you think of Anita Shreve’s novel, Light on
Snow, as a screenplay for a made-for–TV movie, your pleasure in reading
it may rise. As in some of her earlier works, Shreve sets up characters
facing tragedy in their lives, and finding ways to move one. The beginning of
Light
on Snow has the narrator, Nicky Dillon, at age 30 reflecting back on a
life transforming experience from age 12: when she and her father found a
baby abandoned on the snow in the woods behind their When we return to the
house, my father calls Dr. Gibson. I hang around in the den so that I can
hear him in the kitchen. “I just wondered how the
baby was doing,” I hear my father say into the phone. “That’s good, right?” my
father says. “Where is she now?” he
asks. “She’ll be there how long?. “Does she have a name
yet? “Baby Doris,” my father
repeats. He sounds surprised, taken aback. “You say she’ll go into foster
care?... It seems so — Dr. Gibson must make a comment about
foster care and adoption, because my father says, “Yes, cold.” I can hear my
father pouring himself a cup of coffee. “When
the system doesn’t work, what happens?... “She’d
be prosecuted, though. “Thanks,”
my father says. “I just wanted to know that the baby was okay.” My
father hangs up the phone. I move into the kitchen. He’s sipping the lukewarm
coffee and looking out the kitchen window. “Hey,” he says when he hears me. “She’s
all right?” I ask. “She’s
fine.” “They’ve
named her Baby Doris?” “Apparently.”
He sets the mug down. “Going to Sweetser’s,” he
says. “Want to come?” I
don’t have to be asked twice to accompany my father on a trip to town. My father holds the door
for me when we enter the hardware store. Mr. Sweetser
looks up from the paper he has spread across the counter next to the
register. “Our local hero,” he says. “You
heard,” my father says. “Front
page. See for yourself.” My
father and I make our way to the counter. In a newspaper known for its
high-school sports news, Sunday comics, and coupons, I can see a headline
that reads INFANT FOUND IN SNOW Below that is another, smaller
headline: Local Carpenter Finds Baby Alive in Bloody Sleeping Bag. I
bend closer to the counter and read the paper with my father. The reporter
has largely got the story right. There is mention of the motel, the Volvo,
and the navy peacoat. There is no mention of me. “Got your name spelled
wrong,” Sweetser says. “Yeah, I saw that,” my
father says. Dylan. It happens all the time. “You want me to cut it
out for you?” My father shakes his head. “So what happened?” Sweetser asks. My father unzips his
jacket. The store is heated by a fickle woodstove in the corner that makes
the temperature fluctuate between ninety degrees and sixty. Today it feels
like eighty~ “Nicky and I were taking a walk when we heard a cry,” my father
says. “We thought it might be an animal at first. And then we heard the sound
of a car door shutting.” “The baby was in a
sleeping bag?” Sweetser asks. My father nods. “Weirdest thing,” Sweetser says, smoothing the pink strands of hair over
his head. He has recently shaved his beard, revealing a sunken chin and
strange pale skin like a new layer on an animal that’s just molted. “You
wouldn’t think.” “No, you wouldn’t think,”
my father says. “It’s like those fairy
tales my wife used to read the kids,” Sweetser
says. “Carpenter goes into the woods and finds a baby.” “In a fairy tale it would
be a princess,” my father says. “You
should be so lucky,” Sweetser says. For
a hardware store in the no-man’s-land between “That
couple make it up to your place last Friday?” Sweetser
asks. “What
couple?” “I
sent some tourists your way when they started asking for a Shaker table. I
said you did stuff that looked like Shaker.” “Never
saw them,” my father says. “Your
road is crap,” Sweetser says. Sweetser
has been saying our road is crap ever since we moved into town. For over a
year now, he’s been sending people my father’s way. Only a half dozen so far
have braved the miserable road, but by the time they make the trek, they
almost always buy something. “I
need a level,” my father says. “What
happened to the old one?” “I
cracked the vial.” “Hard
to do.” “Yeah. Well.” My father moves to the
shelf of levels. His old level, which worked perfectly well until he knocked
the glass vial against the refrigerator, had metal rails. He picks up a
wooden level. Some of the vials, I see, are oval, while others are arched. My
father points out to me a level that reads in a 360-degree direction. “Going to Remy’s for a
coffee,” Sweetser says, sliding his arm into a yellow
plaid jacket. “You want one?” “No thanks,” my father
says. “ A Drake’s?” “No, that’s okay. I had
breakfast.” “Nicky, how about you?” Sweetser asks. “You want one?” “A Drake’s coffee cake?” I ask. “She wants one,” Sweetser
says. When Sweetser
has left the store, I tell my father I need white paint. “I’m skiing Gunstock
with Jo after Christmas.” “How many now?” he asks. “Seven,” I say, referring
to the white peaks of my mural. “When are you going?” my
father asks. “The day after
Christmas.” “Have you said yes
definitely?” “What’s wrong? Can’t I
go?” “Grammie
will still be here,” my father says. “So
I can’t go skiing?” I ask, my tone immediately challenging. I can go from
zero to all-out rage in less than five seconds now. “No,
you can go,” my father says. “You should ask first is what I’m saying. I
might have had plans. We might have been going somewhere.” “Dad,”
I say, my voice notched up to incredulity, “we never go anywhere.” I
pick out a pint of linen white and walk over to study the antiques. There’s a
maple bedroom set and a ratty green plaid sofa. A jukebox is in a corner. I
wonder if it works. Sweetser
puts his shoulder to the door and enters bearing a coffee cup and a Drake’s
cake. My father selects the level with the fixed vial. He brings it to the
counter and pays for it. With my father’s change, Sweetser
gives him a small rectangle of newsprint. “Cut
it out anyway,” Sweetser says. My father pulls out of Sweetser’s parking lot, the level and the clipping on my
lap. He heads in the direction of home. I take a bite of the Drake’s cake,
the crumbs falling down the front of my parka. “Dad,” I say. “We need food.” “You make a list?” “No, but we need milk and
Cheerios,” I say. “Bread for sandwiches. “I don’t want to go to
Remy’s,” he says. “Enough of the local hero stuff.” My father does a 180 and
heads for Butson’s Market, a store further out of
town that he can sometimes get in and out of without running into anyone he
knows. We pass the Mobil station and the Beside the school is the
Congregational Church, a white clapboarded building with long windows and
black shutters. The church has a steeply pitched roof and a tower with a
bell. Neither my father nor I has ever been inside
it. We pass the three stately homes in
town, one after another on a hill, two of which have seen better days. We
pass Serenity Carpets, a beige house trailer, the volunteer fire department
(Bingo Every Thursday Nite 6:30), and Croydon Realty, to which we drifted in a slow stop the
first time we came into town — Croydon Realty, where it’s still possible to
buy a house for $26,000; not much of a house, but a house. In the summers my
father and I sometimes go for exploratory drives around the countryside,
getting lost on backwoods roads, finding small pockets of surprisingly well
tended houses. “How do they make a living?” my father will always ask. Once
we came upon a moose ambling along in front of us, hogging the narrow road.
We had to follow it for twenty minutes at five miles an hour, not daring to
pass it, learning to like the gentle jog of the animal’s rump. After Croydon
Realty, there are four miles of nothing — just
woods with a stream that parallels the road. My father slows as he passes
Mercy, the first set of buildings after the gap, the
hospital housed in what was once a brick, four-story hotel, converted in the 1930s. Though it has since sprouted
modern wings, the words De Wolfe Hotel 1898 are still inscribed over
the front door of the original building. “Dad, let’s stop,” I say.
“I want to see her.” My father stares at the
hospital. I know that he would like to see the baby, too. But after a few
seconds, he shakes his head. “Too much red tape,” he says, accelerating. Beyond the hospital is a
strip mall into which my father turns. He stops in front of a sign that reads
Liquor Outlet, Butson’s Market, Family Dollar, Frank Renata D.D.S. Milk, I think. Cheerios.
Coffee. Chicken with Stars. American cheese. Hamburger meat. Maybe some Ring
Dings. With a week’s worth of
groceries, my father makes the reverse trip — past the hospital, through the gap,
then the Realtor, the three stately homes, and Remy’s and Sweetser’s
right across the street from each other. Our own road is six miles out of
town. Along the way we pass houses with front porches filled with couches and
plastic toys and empty propane tanks. One of these houses is a small white
clapboard cottage with a tiny fenced-in backyard. The front porch is neatly
crowded with bicycles and tricycles, baseball bats and hockey sticks.
Evidence of boys can also be found in the wash on the line: T-shirts in
varying sizes, jeans, and hockey shirts or bathing suits depending on the
season. In the middle of the wash I sometimes see a bra or a slip or a pretty
nightgown. When we drive by in the winter, we occasionally see the mother
struggling with large, unwieldy frozen sheets. They look like cardboard and
blow with the wind. I always wave at the woman, who smiles and waves back.
Sometimes in the summers I have an urge to stop my bike and say hello and
enter that house and meet the boys and see the chaos I imagine there. My father pulls the truck into our
driveway. “You bought spaghetti?” he asks. And Ragu sauce, I say. He parks in his usual spot beside the
barn. He turns off the engine. “That okay for supper?” “It’s fine.” “I bought Breyers,”
he says. I saw. “Butter pecan. Your favorite.” “Dad?” I say. “What?” “How did the baby get
named My father reaches for his cigarettes, a
nervous gesture, but then he decides against it with me in the truck. “I
don’t know,” he says. “Maybe it was the name of one of the nurses. “It sounds like the name of a
hurricane.” “They probably have a system,” he says. “You think they get that many babies?” “I don’t think so. I hope not.” “It’s an old-fashioned name,” I say. I
am leaning against my door. My father has his hand on his door handle, as if
he were anxious to get out of the truck. “It’s a strange name to give a baby
these days,” he concedes. “What will happen to her?” I ask “Did
Dr. Gibson tell you?” “She’ll go into social services,” my
father says. He puts his hand on the door handle and opens the door a crack. “She’ll get a new mother and father and
new brothers and sisters.” “Most likely.” “It doesn’t seem right,” I say. “What doesn’t seem right?” “Us not knowing where she is.” “That’s the way it has to be, Nicky.”
He opens his door, signaling the end of the conversation. “Dad?” I ask. “What?” “Why can’t we have her? We could go get
her and have her with us.” The idea is both appalling and sublime.
In my twelve-year-old mind, I have conceived the notion of supplanting one
baby with another. As soon as I say the words and catch a glimpse of my
father’s face, I see what I’ve done. But as a twelve-year-old will do, I
become defensive. “Why not?” I ask with the petulant tone of the aggrieved
and misunderstood, a tone I will shortly learn to master. “Didn’t it make you
feel like maybe Clara had come back to us? That maybe we’re supposed to have
her?” My father steps out of the truck. He
takes a long breath. “No, Nicky, it did not,” he says. “Clara was Clara, and
this baby is someone else. She is not ours to have.” He looks over at the
barn and then back at me. “Help me get these groceries in the house before
the ice cream melts.” “Dad, it’s twenty out,” I say.
“The ice cream isn’t going anywhere.” But I am saying this to my father’s
back. He has shut the door and taken a bag of groceries from the back of the
truck. I watch him walk toward the house, grief a hard nut inside his chest. Shreve’s character development in Light on
Snow fell short of my expectations, and the emotional tugs were overly
melodramatic. If you enjoy coming of age stories, and the processing of grief
and search for redemption, you’re likely to get satisfaction in reading Light on
Snow. Steve Hopkins,
May 25, 2005 |
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ă 2005 Hopkins and Company, LLC The recommendation rating for
this book appeared in the June 2005
issue of Executive Times URL for this review: http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/Books/Light
on Snow.htm For Reprint Permission,
Contact: Hopkins & Company, LLC • E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com |
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