When The Snow Child came out, I remember being completely blown away by the story – the landscape of Alaska, the characters – everything came together perfectly to create this story.
It was such a perfect novel, I am not sure how any author could follow it up. In fact, I am not even entirely sure The Snow Child would still live up to my memory of it if I re-read it now. Overall, I would say this one worked better for me than her previous novel, To the Bright Edge of the World but it still has a very different feel from The Snow Child.
While this still takes place in Alaska, it’s a more modern setting than her previous two novels. It also explores a darker story and has a darker outcome than The Snow Child which was bittersweet but ultimately more focused on hope and the positives.
The landscape and outdoors feel like their own character here – I’m absolutely not an outdoorsy person but Ivey describes the magic and vastness of Alaska so well that I get the appeal. But it’s not an easy life – it can be hard and isolated, too. The story focuses on Birdie, her young daughter Emaleen and Birdie’s relationship with Arthur. Birdie can be a frustrating character – she is stuck in a cycle of poverty and makes bad decisions. In Arthur, she sees a way to turn things around and return to a simpler life, and for a while, it works.
But Arthur has his own nature he is trying to suppress – while it takes Birdie a while to catch on, the novel and author don’t try to hide: Arthur is a bear. Arthur’s father’s perspective is especially melancholy and heartbreaking. This is a man that has always tried to do the right thing but some of those decisions and actions have had unintended consequences. At its heart, this is a novel of flawed people trying their best, trying to connect, finding meaning and purpose but that sometimes there is no way to force something to fit and that nature can’t be entirely tamed.
