Light on Snow, Anita Shreve, Little Brown and Company, 2004, 305 pp
I haven't read a book by Anita Shreve for several years. I forgot that while she is not great, she is actually quite a good author. What I like is the way she allows her characters to be what they are: noble, flawed, contradictory, each one, without a lot of explanation.
I was a bit shocked and leery because I started the book after lunch and was done by dinner, but it seemed OK because enough of the whole story was there. Twelve year old Nicky lost her mother and little sister to a car accident at the age of eight. Her inconsolable father moved them away from all people they knew and any familiar scenes or activities to an isolated New England farm house.
One day while on a walk on snowshoes through the woods, they find an abandoned baby and take it home. Soon enough the mother shows up. Nicky is infatuated with the whole thing and eventually her tiny grief stricken life opens up again. I could be critical about a few things but why bother? It is a good story, it is believable and shows the harm we do when we try to hide secrets. Certainly worth a few hours of immersion in someone else's life.
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