The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey

What a lovely and magical book this is! On the one hand, it is a realistic picture of the hardship involved in trying to farm in the harsh yet beautiful Alaskan wilderness. On the other hand, it is a book of magical realism, with its story basis being a Russian fairy tale. As one reviewer wrote, "If Willa Cather and Gabriel Garcia Marquez had collaborated on a book, The Snow Child would be it."

As the Russian story goes, a couple who have long yearned for a child build a girl out of snow. The next morning, the snow child is gone, but they see a young girl running through the woods. As with most folk tales, many variations and endings exist, some sorrowful and some joyful.

As the novel goes, Jack and Mabel are struggling to survive the hardships of Alaskan settlement in 1920 and their sorrow at the still-birth of their child. In a rare moment of joy, they build a snow girl and, as in the Russian tale, next morning they see a young girl running through the trees. Wild and fey, the girl eventually comes to trust the couple and they come to love her as if she were their own, even though she disappears each spring when the snow stops falling. They accept her for the mystery she is: as Mabel says, "You did not have to understand miracles to believe in them...."

But then a very real explanation for her existence and actions is discovered, so perhaps no miracle is involved at all. And yet....

This is a story of love and family and hope and beauty and the pain and joy of life.

The writing is absolutely perfect, as far as I am concerned. It pictures the Alaskan landscape so concretely that I could see it in my mind, without any of those self-consciously poetic metaphors so prevalent in many of today's novels. The magic and the realism are mixed perfectly, so that they flow through each other.

I see this quote as illustrating the theme of the book, "In my old age, I see that life itself is often more fantastic and terrible than the stories we believed in as children, and that perhaps there is no harm in finding magic among trees."

No harm, indeed.

This novel was a finalist for the 2013 Pulitzer Prize. Most highly recommended.