LIGHT ON SNOW by Anita Shreve
Anita Shreve writes with words and phrases that are amazingly simple, but renders plots that are stunning in their complexity. Such is definitely the case in LIGHT ON SNOW, her latest novel. The relationship between a father and a twelve year old girl is examined as well as the impact of their finding an abandoned baby. Such is the stuff of high drama and Shreve dissects it to its barest elements.
Robert Dillon and his daughter Nicky live an isolated life in Shepherd, New Hampshire. Dillon brought them there after the deaths of his wife and infant daughter in a car accident. The scars of this tragedy are still fresh and their mood is matched by the raw weather of this location.
During the month of December when the world is at its coldest in this location, Robert and Nicky go on a walk one day. They stumble across a baby wrapped in a parka and left to die. They rescue the child and take her to the hospital. As a result of this act of kindness they get bound up in suspicion by the local authorities.
Later their involvement becomes more acute and the impact of this one act changes their lives forever. Nicky begins to see the world and her father in a different light, and Robert looks at Nicky with a new appreciation and perspective.
The story is basically a one event telling. The discovery of the abandoned infant and the way the lives of Robert and Nicky are impacted makes up the core of the plot. However the undertones of their relationship as well as the way they are treated by the community provides the depth of the book.
There are harbingers of things that might occur in the future. Shreve implies them so subtlety that the reader is not aware of them until they are recalled after the reading is completed. This enhances the reading experience and makes Shreve's story have even more clout than first expected.
You will get into the tempo of LIGHT ON SNOW very quickly and will find it haunts your thoughts long after the last page has been turned. Shreve is a master storyteller and one who writes stories that resonate with human emotions and wrenching complexities.
LIGHT ON SNOW is published by Little, Brown and Company. It contains 305 pages and sells for $24.95.