The Snow Child

[Valrose]

On the surface, the debut novel, The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey reminds me of the popular book series, Little House on the Prairie only set in Alaska during the 1920’s homestead-era instead of the settling into prairie during the 1880’s. The novel takes place near the Wolverine River in Alaska during the time the federal government was looking for people to homestead along the territory’s new train route, the Alaska Railroad. Believed by many to be God’s Country, Alaska was considered “the land of milk and honey, moose, caribou, bears….and streams so full of salmon a man could walk across their backs to the other side.”

Ivey is inspired by an actual pamphlet, "Alaska, Our Newest Homeland," that was distributed throughout the Midwest, a campaign that lured about 100 settlers, including the fictional couple in the novel, Jack and Mabel. Both are in their early 50’s. They have decided to leave Pennsylvania to forge a new life in Alaska. Jack is a farmer. His family has owned a farm along the Allegheny River for generations growing mainly apples and hay. He sells his share in the farm partly because Mabel suggested it, partly because it is a dream he always had. They leave Pennsylvania looking for a fresh start in Alaska, chasing a dream that had almost blown away and now that they are going, has a good chance of failure.

Jack brings farming experience, his tools and his doubts to Alaska. Mabel brings her “dishes, pans and as many books as they could hold.” Both bring a cart full of invisible baggage: heartache, sadness, and guilt about their stillborn child, as well as repressed anger and resentment festering in their marriage. When the novel begins the couple barely speaks to each other and Mabel is ready to give up completely and the novel would have ended before it began. Survival is a key theme in the novel; will Mabel and Jack be able to survive in Alaska? Will the marriage survive? Components so vital to a working relationship, and often so elusive, such as honesty, forgiveness, acceptance, and ego are artfully addressed in the novel, not specifically articulated, but woven between the chapters. It’s amazing to me that a comparison can be made between surviving in Alaska and surviving a marriage; but I believe it is. An author has all sorts of choices to make with each new chapter and Ivey consistently seems to be drawn to the theme of marriage, the intimate relationship between two people who can be both so close and so distant, so in love with each other and also so hurt and confused.

It is when Jack and Mabel share a Thanksgiving meal with the Benson family that life begins anew for the couple. Ivey writes that “It was as if Mabel had fallen through a hold into another world. “ Mabel sees that though the Benson’s cabin is cluttered with animal skulls, dried wild flowers, and smells strongly of cabbage and sour wild cranberries it is also filled with laughter and love. Stomachs are filled, hearts are warmed and a friendship blooms in the midst of the snow-capped mountains, moonshine and endless meals of moose steaks.

But, it is Jack’s first sight of blue and red dashing through the trees that mark the start of the mystery, a beautiful fairy-tale about a wilderness pixie, a snow child, and the people who come to love her. Questions begin to swirl about the child, where did she come from, where does she live? is she real?

While Ivey’s novel is about life on the frontier and it is excellent retelling of a fairy-tale, it is so much more. As we read we have to ask ourselves, can Jack and Mable, or any adult for that matter, learn anything about our own lives from a fairy-tale?
Reviewed by: ValRose
The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey

[Fran]

Duplicated topic