Fran: I is for Ivey

I freely confess to trolling the library shelves for a book that strikes my fancy by an author whose last name begins with a letter I don't yet have.  That's why I left the library this week with an I and a couple of Qs (yet to begin).  I also admit that I picked up this book because of the author's first name.

Eowyn Ivey's book, The Snow Child, (with excerpt link!) is perhaps best described as magical realism.  Using the core of a Russian fairy tale about a childless couple's snow sculpture comes to life, the book is set in Alaska of the early 20th century with childless homesteaders, Jack and Mabel.  Faina, a blond waif, appears out of the woods just after Jack and Mabel break their sadness and the stress of Alaskan life by making a snow maiden.  We are left wondering whether Faina is a snow child out of a fairy tale or an orphaned girl making her own way in the wilderness; really, this is a book about how we need to believe stories, how they bring a magic and a vibrancy to our lives, and how we rely on them to tell ourselves things about ourselves.

Ivey's book is very rich--the relationships between characters (Jack and Mabel, Mabel and Esther--another, more established homesteader, Jack and Garrett--Esther's son) are nuanced and deep.  The setting is interesting, in a way that appealed to the Little House on the Prairie reader in me.  I was sometimes disappointed by the way Faina interacts with figures and I blame this on Ivey wanting to have her Snow Maiden and her real girl simultaneously; Ivey doesn't want to settle one way or the other which leaves the magic sometimes flatter than it might be.  The end has a complicated twist I wasn't expecting, which pushed the book back towards magical realism.  A good read--sad, still, sweet, strong.