Light on Snow by Anita Shreve is a beautiful depiction of the consequences of love, the stages of grief, and the healing process. Every character plays an important role in the story whether it is through their own development, to move the plot along, or to tie the past to the present seamlessly.
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Why I picked up this book
This year has brought with it a number of challenges and opportunities to catch up on things around the house. In 2019 I failed to meet my New Year’s Resolution. At first glance it appeared to be a simple one, don’t purchase another book until you’ve read the ones you already have.
Sounds easy? Right? It wasn’t.
I quickly discovered that some of the books I never finished reading because they failed to capture me. The first book I picked up I spent three months trying to get into the story and I never did. I gave up.
Now, in 2020, stuck at home with plenty of time for reading I started looking over my shelf of unread books, and Light On Snow caught my eye.
I do not know when or where I picked up this book. I imagine it was during my husband’s time as the Cafe Manager at Barnes-N-Noble in Dallas, some 16 years ago. This time when I picked it up I recognized the author. She had written The Pilot’s Wife, a book that has held fast in my memory many years later.
The Pilot’s Wife was one of those books I picked up to kill a weekend cuddled up on the couch. It did not disappoint, so much so I still remember scenes from it as if I were the one walking along the beach.
Now that I’ve read two books by Anita Shreve I’m left with the overall feeling that this is a writer who understands and communicates well the many facets of grief.
Overview of Light on Snow
“What makes a family? That’s what twelve-year-old Nicky Dillon wonders after she and her widowed father discover a wailing abandoned baby in the snow-filled woods near their New Hampshire home. Through the days that follow, the Dillons and an unexpected visitor who soon turns up at their door-a young woman evidently haunted by her own terrible choices-face a thicket of decisions, each seeming to carry equal possibilities of heartbreak and redemption.” - blurb is taken from Amazon.
Anita Shreve has written over fifteen novels. I’ve now read two, Light on Snow and The Pilot’s Wife, so I have a few more to go. Her book The Weight of Water was a finalist for the Orange Prize. Before becoming a full-time fiction writer she was a high school teacher and a freelance magazine journalist. She taught writing for a time at Amherst College.
Side note: I want to stop right here and just say how encouraging that is to me. As a full-time freelance writer with aspirations of being a full-time novelist finding other authors who have taken similar paths reminds me to keep moving forward one day at a time.
You can learn more about this author at www.anitashrevebooks.com.
As a writer, what can I learn about the craft from Light on Snow?
When I read a book, I come at it not just as an avid reader, but also as a writer. The questions I am asking myself go beyond simple enjoyment. I am looking at the craft.
- What is it about Light on Snow that captures my attention?
- Is there something that pulls me away from the story? Do I want to turn every page and if so why?
- Do I develop strong emotional ties to each character and if so how did Anita Shreve accomplish this?
- Did Anita Shreve break any well-established writing rules? If so which ones and did it contribute to the story or take away from it?
- Can Light on Snow and the methods Anita Shreve uses offer me a way forward on a project I am working on or a problem I am facing in my writing?
These are the questions playing around in my head with every book I read.
Character Development
This book is very much a coming of age story for the main character Nicky Dillon. She is a child dealing with the grief of losing her mother and baby sister at the beginning of the novel. By the end, even though only a few weeks have passed, she is physically and mentally a young woman. The events of this story open her eyes to the consequences of love, both good and bad.
Nicky’s dad, Robert Dillon, is also struggling through immense grief and loss. The kind that is only felt with the loss of a spouse and child. It is debelitating. His transformation takes place through the eyes of Nicky, a young girl who idolizes and wishes to protect her father. As Nicky grows her father also transforms. Nicky begins to see how he has failed as father though she understands his grief. It is not until she openly defies him that we begin to see her father change. As Nicky begins to mature her father begins to heal from his grief.
The other main characters are there to support the growth of Nicky and her dad.
Charlotte is a complex character. There is little development but rather a slow revealing of who she is all along.
The Detective does not change from page one to the last but adds tension to the plot every time he arrives.
The grandmother is the nurturing force and the tie to normalcy that Nicky has in life. She is mentioned often but is not physically present until the very end of the story.
The baby is rarely present. She is background information, a key plot point that ties the characters together and the beginning of the story to the end.
The store clerk, the best friend, the visiting couple, and the woman and her boys down the road all play into the story not as complex characters but as essentials to highlight the isolation of Nicky and her ad as well as parallel their past and present lives.
Plot
What stood out to me above all else was the way in which the different characters handled their grief. They were all connected through the same tragedy but also shared grief through similar losses. Even though Nicky and her father were isolated in their snowy fortress in the middle of nowhere, they were never truly alone in their loss. This was something Nicky’s dad had to realize in order to begin healing.
Writing
Light on Snow was written from Nicky’s point of view, not in the present but as the memory of a grown adult. This allowed Shreve to insert the perspective and understanding of a grown woman while still telling the story of a twelve-year-old. She executed this well. It can be tricky to do this, at least for me. I have the tendency to slip into telling rather than showing when speaking of the past.
The voice was easy to read and the dialog flowed naturally. At no point did I feel pulled from the story from unnecessary details. Every paragraph added important information either about the plot or character development.
Audiobook
This book is available as an audiobook though I did read the hard copy I found on my bookshelf. If you listen to the reading of Light on Snow I would love to hear your thoughts on the narration and execution of each character’s voice. Make sure you come back and tell us!
If you don’t yet have an audible account pick up a free trial and get Light on Snow for free today.
My opinion of Light on Snow by Anita Shreve
Overall, I really enjoyed this book. It was one I did not want to put down and made me tear up a few times. Mostly because I wanted to understand what had happened to Charlotte and how she had found herself in this predicament. I also wanted Nicky and her father to heal. I was rooting for them and hurting with them throughout the book.
The ending was well executed. There were enough hints to tell us the direction their lives would take, to show us that they had begun to heal and would be reentering the world again.
Grief never leaves us, but we learn how to live and love again. That was the message I took from Light on Snow, and a truth I have experienced in my own life.
I paid special attention to her ability to switch between periods of time. Shreve was able to take us from the present story with Nicky, Charlotte, and her dad to the past that had Nicky, her baby sister, her mother, and her father. She was able to do this seamlessly, each past story enhancing the action in the present. It was well executed.
I plan to go back to these points and study the transitions and the words chosen that link these scenes so well to one another. As I work on my own novel I’m looking for ways to do the same. It can be tricky and if not executed well can jar the reader from the magic of the story.
Margaret Atwood addresses this in her MasterClass. The 13th class in the series is titled Working With Time In Fiction. If this is an area that you struggle with as well I highly recommend the class.
If you’ve read Light on Snow or another book by Anita Shreve I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments. Don’t forget to grab your next read here:
Main image credit: Photo by Willow Schleich on Unsplash
