Light on Snow

Anita Shreve

12/28/2004

Nicky lives with her father in an isolated home in a small town in New Hampshire. Her mother and sister died in an automobile crash two years earlier when she was ten. Her father moved out of New York City to escape his memories and grieve alone. Their life is very simple. He now makes furniture and stays home all the time. She only has two friends at school and also stays home most of the time. Most afternoons they walk together in the woods.

It is December when the book starts. Dad and Nicky go walking in the cold, twilight winter's afternoon. They hear an odd noise. When they follow it, they discover a newborn laying in a sleeping bag in the snow. Dad picks up the baby, puts her inside his jacket, and the two of them rush off to the hospital. Their quick action saved the baby's life. Dad is now a reluctant hero. He is glad it is difficult for people to contact them.

Nicky is concerned about the baby. She keeps picturing her own sister who was only one when she died. She remembers times when her mother and her sister were still therre and they were a family. Now they are two people who share a home. She day dreams about bringing the abandoned baby girl back to their own home.

A week or two later, shortly before Christmas, three people fight their way up to the house to buy some of Dad's furniture. One of the customers is an old co-worker of Dad's. Another is a woman who is not sure what she wants. Nicky and Dad's life are about to change again.

This book is an easy read. But it isn't easy to let go. It is a slice of life type novel - with an ending that isn't because we know that life will continue. It is a time for Nicky, the narrator of the book, to start to grow out of childhood and into the beginnings of maturity. The reader gets to look into two shattered lives to see how they are coping. The book is written simply. It is the journal of a twelve year old girl covering a few odd weeks of her life. The words ring true. When you put it down, Nicky's life will stay with you for a while.

I feel that this book is meant to push emotional buttons. It didn't for me. I liked the story, but never got involved. At the same time, when I was done, I sat there thinking about it for quite a while. This isn't great literature, but it is worth reading.

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