White Bird in a Blizzard: A Novel
by Laura Kasischke
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Description
I am sixteen when my mother steps out of her skin one frozen January afternoon—pure self, atoms twinkling like microscopic diamond chips around her perhaps the chiming of a clock, or a few bright flute notes in the distance—and disappears. No one sees her leave, but she is gone.Laura Kasischke's first novel. Suspicious River. was hailed by the critics as "extremely powerful" (The Los Angeles Times), "amazing" (The Boston Globe), and "a novel of depth, beauty, and insight" (The Seattle show more Times). Now Kasischke follows up her auspicious debut with a spellbinding and erotic tale of marriage, secrets, and self-deception.
When Katrina Connors' mother walks out on her family one frigid January day, Kat is surprised but not shocked; the whole year she has been "becoming sixteen"—falling in love with the boy next door, shedding her baby fat, discovering sex—her mother has slowly been withdrawing. As Kat and her father pick up the pieces of their daily life, she finds herself curiously unaffected by her mother's absence. But in dreams that become too real to ignore, she's haunted by her mother's cries for help. . . .
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Member Reviews
Beautiful writing with some stunning turns of phrase. The pacing of the ending is quite off, but I think it's still worth a read. Kat is an interesting character with a wonderful narrative voice.
SPOILERS
The issue I have with the ending is that within the last approximately ten pages, a character who has been identified as a complete milquetoast throughout the entire novel is speculated, by another character, to actually be a vicious, angry murderer. And then he is, apparently? It comes out of nowhere, it's completely inconsistent, and it ruined the end for me. It would be one thing if the novel indicated that Kat has been unreliable or misguided, but it just kind of pops out of there and then the story is over.
SPOILERS
The issue I have with the ending is that within the last approximately ten pages, a character who has been identified as a complete milquetoast throughout the entire novel is speculated, by another character, to actually be a vicious, angry murderer. And then he is, apparently? It comes out of nowhere, it's completely inconsistent, and it ruined the end for me. It would be one thing if the novel indicated that Kat has been unreliable or misguided, but it just kind of pops out of there and then the story is over.
I loved this book. Loved the story, the writing and poetic flow. I picked this book because I seen on Ellen that there was a movie coming out by this name and figured ah just for the heck of it I'll see if there is a book. I have a thing about reading the book before seeing the movie whenever possible so I got it. Well now that I have read the book and enjoyed it I can't wait to see the movie too.
I think this novel was reviewed somewhere as being too similar to "She's Come Undone" by Wally Lamb. To me, it's still a great book--and I think that review was a little unfounded.
Beautiful, if excessive, imagery.
annual updates after Kat's mom disappears without a trace
5.00
5.00
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Author Information
29+ Works 2,348 Members
Series
Belongs to Publisher Series
Gallimard, Folio (7067)
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Statistics
- Members
- 123
- Popularity
- 265,780
- Reviews
- 5
- Rating
- (3.92)
- Languages
- English, French
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 9
- UPCs
- 1
- ASINs
- 2
