Boy, Snow, Bird

Once upon a time, there was an evil mother, a beautiful daughter, and an attentive father…. The narrative of their lives starts when Boy runs away from the home where she was physically and psychologically abused by The Rat Catcher, and ends up in a small artisanal town in Massachusetts. In Flax Hill, MA, Boy meets and marries a local widower who has a daughter of his own, a classical, ethereal beauty named Snow. With the arrival of Boy’s own daughter, named Bird, Boy and Snow’s promising relationship becomes estranged and culminates with Boy sending Snow away to live with another relative. Throughout all of Boy’s and Bird’s life, perhaps with Snow’s as well, there are fantastical, sometimes terrifying events involving show more visions, mirrors and tapping into the “technically impossible” aspects of the world in which they live.

Boy, Snow, Bird opens with the story told from twenty-year old Boy’s point of view. We are at once struck by her coldness, her emotional disconnect from events surrounding her and the seemingly heartless decisions she makes as her intellect supersedes her emotions. There are non sequiturs that jump out from the story in the blink of an eye and just as quickly disappear. The confusing episodes remind the reader of the demi-world between wakefulness and sleep, a place where a feeling becomes manifest as in a dream with the equal chance that it will be a nightmare. This is the part of the novel where Oyeyemi successfully casts her first spell, luring the reader/listener into the twilight of Boy’s world.

The second section of Boy, Snow, Bird is told from thirteen-year old Bird’s point of view. Bird is precocious, inquisitive and vivacious, but impetuous and even a bit cruel. She is an aspiring journalist who is sharp enough to ferret out information even as she seeks to uncover the truth of the world around her. In the process of negotiating her burgeoning adolescence and dinner table politics, she strives to find her voice, test her boundaries, and wield her power. In this section, the clues as to what is really going on in this novel proliferate; but they are like the blue jewels set in the chain mail that Bird’s father makes: You can become mesmerized in the fairy tale references, without seeing how they connect to the whole of the narrative.

The last section of the novel reverts back to Boy, now a thirty-three year old mother and wife, and is the most controversial part of the book. It is a section fraught with twists, denouements and, a different kind of ending than many readers might have anticipated; but it is in the final part that the key to the novel is to be found (on page 299): “I need to know how to break a spell.”

When you see it, you can only marvel at the tale of enchantment that Helen Oyeyemi has spun.

Susan Bennett and Cara Patterson are the two narrators in the audiobook production. Ms Bennett performs the role of Boy, while Ms Patterson voices Bird (and Snow in the instance of the covert correspondence that Bird and Snow take up.) Ms Bennett lends a clear, detached, and an entirely appropriate voice to the character of Boy; though apparently 1950s Manhattan sounded like Brooklyn; the relative isolation from New York made no impact on Boy’s accent after thirteen years; and she was immune to her New England neighbors. Ms Patterson’s approach to Bird is also commendable for its brightness and briskness, which matches Bird’s personality; though it suffers somewhat by being obviously more mature than her character, and in comparison to Ms Bennett’s more professional finish. show less

I don't know how to rate this.
I adore most of the book. Voice, tone, language, perspective, space, metaphor, restraint - love 'em all. And then...
After writing tremendously well about identity and perception, about the things we put on each other, the author ends the story with a revelation that is very hard to read as anything but transphobic bullshit. It's a strange ending that doesn't seem to fit the narrative, and the more I try to make sense of it in the plotline, the more transphobic it becomes. I'm struggling to understand how someone who writes with thoughtfulness and subtlety and frankness (in turns) about race and identity could then cast trans* identity as a trauma-induced mental illness that needs to be fixed. Honestly, show more I'm struggling. I wrote a few pages of rambling review in the hopes that I'm just misreading, misinterpreting. (Maybe she's holding up a mirror to an ugliness in our society. Maybe we're supposed to see how warped it is that Boy thinks she can 'bring back' her mother and somehow make everything ok. Maybe...)
There's some selfishness here on my part, because I want to love this work, and I want to recommend it. And more than that, I don't want to believe a person can be so clear about identity in one sense and so hurtful and wrong in another.
So here's hoping that I read it wrong. And if not, here's hoping every reader takes all that understanding of damaging expectations of identity and applies it to our conceptions of gender as well. show less

I could not stop reading this book; when you come home after an amazing theater experience (Stewart and McKellan in Waiting for Godot) and what you think is, I can read my book some more -- that's a compelling read.

This retelling of Snow White begins from the perspective of the "evil" stepmother, Boy. With her white-blond hair and difficulty connecting with people, Boy is less Malificent and more the Snow Queen. Fleeing her abusive single father in NYC, she gets on the farthest bus leaving the station that night, and finds herself in a small town in Massachusetts. Though she finds it hard to feel, she forms friendships, finds work, and begins to build a life. She marries a widower, whose unbelievably lovely daughter, Snow, first draws show more her in, and later alienates her. When the birth of her dark-skinned own daughter, Bird, reveals that her husband's family is African-American, passing for white in the pre-civil rights North, her mother-in-law encourages her to send the infant away to her own dark-skinned daughter. Instead, she sends Snow.

The second portion of the book is told from 13 year old Bird's perspective, as she tries to form a connection with her absent sister. Bird's life has been relatively happy, though she is struggling with adolescent angst. But she is puzzled, as is everyone else, by her otherwise loving mother's inability to deal with Snow, and her own periodic absence of a reflection.

In the final, brief, section, the narrative returns to Boy, the extended family's attempt at reconciliations, and some unexpected secrets from Boy's own family.

I received this book from the LibraryThing Early Reviewers Program.

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Don't read if you don't want to know . . .

The most problematic thing about the book is that transgender is dealt with less sympathetically than race passing, but there are possibilities of reconciliation, or at least understanding, all around. And the best thing about the book is that while some of the women have positive relationship with men, none of the enchanted princesses -- Boy, Snow, or Bird -- are rescued by anyone but themselves, with the possible aid of a few insightful female friends. show less

Oyeyemi's language weaves its own marvelous spell, which I happily expect from her now, and I was struck and moved by the struggles and lives of all three main characters.

However. Though I desperately want to give this book four stars, there was a profound misstep in the final act of the book that knocked the story right off its axis. I'll have to think about this some more, but in a story about layers & multiplicities of self, and the myriad complexities of identity, for the narrative to blatantly villainize a marginalized group in such a staunch -- and abrupt! -- manner not only startled and dismayed me, but soured the preceding narrative to a degree.

There are so many impressive aspects in any Oyeyemi novel — form, subjects, character, dramatic scenes, etc. — that I’m at a loss for why they don’t work better. Here, an abused daughter in mid-20th century New York escapes to a town in Massachusetts where she begins a new life, falls in love with a man, and gives birth. Is it a fairy tale ending? No, it’s just the beginning of a completely different story about race, difference, passing as white, and motherhood. But then, just as that story is about to close we are treated to yet another substantive subject: sexual identity and transgender misidentification. It’s a bit much.

The writing is vivid. Oyeyemi has a knack for startling images. She writes first-person narratives, show more especially from the point of view of a pre-teen, with sensitivity and insight. All of which sounds great except that throughout the novel it is nearly impossible to know where or when the story is taking place. So, voice over place, subject over narrative. No wonder things seem muddled.

Oyeyemi is clearly a novelist with immense potential. I will continue to read her novels in hope that she pulls it all together at some point. And on that basis, I would gently recommend her to others. Still one to watch. show less

Finished Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi & loved it. Didn't see the end coming either. So glad that serendipity had me recently read Langston Hughes' The Ways of White Folks as some very similar themes popped up between both works & I loved how they worked in tandem & complemented each other. Oyeyemi creates a magical, yet menacing (a la Grimms' fairy tales) landscape with characters both firmly rooted in (harsh) realities while still existing on an almost mystical plane. Lots of fascinating, heart-wrenching, riveting topics on race, identity, reality, humanity, & the ties that both bind us all & also set us free. Not really a fairy tale nor magical realism, more of a unique blend of folktale, grand storytelling, political & social show more commentary told through the lives of strong & interesting women. I am enchanted with Oyeyemi's works -- so much to ponder & appreciate here.... show less

What a brilliant, brilliant novel! Making allegorical use of the Snow White fairytale the author explored a whole range of complex and inter-linked themes (eg race, bigotry, gender, the search for identity, secrets in families, what constitutes beauty, vanity ... to name just a few!) and has created an enchanting, multi-layered story. As with all fairy-stories, beneath the "magic" there's an all-pervasive underlying darkness and she doesn't shrink from exposing this, at times in ways which made me stop and re-read certain sections because they challenged me to look at something from a different perspective, to dig deeper beneath the surface.
There is pain and darkness in this story and certain aspects of it made me feel angry about the show more experiences some of the characters faced, but there were also moments of joy and laughter which, without in any way denying the awfulness of the pain, lightened the story in a delightful way.
This is the first of Helen Oyeyami's books I have read but I'll be catching up on her backlist as soon
I can ... I'm just about to start Gingerbread! show less