Alaska, 1920: a
brutal place to homestead, and especially tough for recent arrivals
Jack and Mabel. Childless, they are drifting apart--he breaking under
the weight of the work of the farm; she crumbling from loneliness and
despair. In a moment of levity during the season's first snowfall, they
build a child out of snow. The next morning the snow child is
gone--but they glimpse a young, blonde-haired girl running through the
trees. This little girl, who calls herself Faina, seems to be a child of
the woods. She hunts with a red fox at her side, skims lightly across
the snow, and somehow survives alone in the Alaskan wilderness. As Jack
and Mabel struggle to understand this child who could have stepped from
the pages of a fairy tale, they come to love her as their own daughter.
But in this beautiful, violent place things are rarely as they appear,
and what they eventually learn about Faina will transform all of them.
About the Author
Eowyn LeMay Ivey was raised in Alaska and continues to live there
with her husband and two daughters. She received her BA in journalism
and minor in creative writing through the honors program at Western
Washington University, studied creative nonfiction at the University of
Alaska Anchorage graduate program, and worked for nearly 10 years as an
award-winning reporter at the Frontiersman newspaper. This is her first
novel.
Praise for The Snow Child…
"If Willa Cather and Gabriel Garcia Marquez had collaborated on a
book, THE SNOW CHILD would be it. It is a remarkable accomplishment -- a
combination of the most delicate, ethereal, fairytale magic and the
harsh realities of homesteading in the Alaskan wilderness in 1918.
Stunningly conceived, beautifully told, this story has the intricate
fragility of a snowflake and the natural honesty of the dirt beneath
your feet, the unnerving reality of a dream in the night. It fascinates,
it touches the heart. It gallops along even as it takes time to pause
at the wonder of life and the world in which we live. And it will stir
you up and stay with you for a long, long time."
-Robert Goolrick, New York Times bestselling author of A Reliable Wife
"THE
SNOW CHILD is enchanting from beginning to end. Ivey breathes life
into an old tale and makes it as fresh as the season' s first snow.
Simply lovely."
-Keith Donohue, New York Times bestselling author of The Stolen Child
"A transporting tale . . . an amazing achievement."
-Sena Jeter Naslund, New York Times bestselling author of Ahab's Wife
"THE
SNOW CHILD is a vivid story of isolation and hope on the Alaska
frontier, a narrative of struggle with the elements and the elemental
conflict between one's inner demons and dreams, and the miracle of human
connection and community in a spectacular, dangerous world. You will
not soon forget this story of learning to accept the gifts that fate and
love can bring."
-Robert Morgan, author of Gap Creek
"Eowyn
Ivey's exquisite debut transports the reader away to a world almost out
of time, into a fairytale destined to both chill and delight. Her
portrayal of an untamed Alaska is so detailed you can feel the
snowflakes on your own eyelashes, even as her characters' desperate
quest for, and ultimate redemption by, love will warm your heart."
-Melanie Benjamin, author of Alice I Have Been
"Magical,
yes, but THE SNOW CHILD is also satisfyingly realistic in its depiction
of 1920s homestead-era Alaska and the people who settled there,
including an older couple bound together by resilient love. Eowyn Ivey's
poignant debut novel grabbed me from the very first pages and made me
wish we had more genre-defying Alaska novels like this one. Inspired by a
fairy tale, it nonetheless contains more depth and truth than so many
books set in this land of extremes."
-Andromeda Romano-Lax, author of The Spanish Bow
"This
book is real magic, shot through from cover to cover with the cold,
wild beauty of the Alaskan frontier. Eowyn Ivey writes with all the
captivating delicacy of the snowfalls she so beautifully describes."
-Ali Shaw, author of The Girl with Glass Feet
