Book Review: The Algebra of Snow by Ginger Moran

What makes you pick up a book and read it?  The cover picture?  The title?  The author’s name?  A friend’s recommendation?  A good review?  I’ve picked up books for all of those reasons.  What grabbed me about The Algebra of Snow: A Bedtime Story for My Mother was the title.  I love snow, I hate algebra, but putting the two together… that sounded intriguing.

Amelia doesn’t intend to spend the winter in the summer cabin she’d rented in the Adirondacks.  She told her neighbour she was just staying until the end of October to get some articles written.  But October turns into November and the articles aren’t written yet and Amelia is still there, wrestling with her memories of her marriage, her mother, her career.

When Amelia’s ex-husband comes up for Thanksgiving, reconciliation seems possible.  Then a phone call turns Amelia back into the Ice Queen her husband accuses her of being.  After he leaves, her world shrinks to her living room—to keeping the fire, huddling in the blankets on the couch, and chasing memories.  Amelia writes letters to her mothers, imagines a handsome stranger’s visits, goes to the edge of madness and back again.

Written in first-person from Amelia’s point of view, The Algebra of Snow is a compelling, haunting novel.  Amelia’s voice pulled me into the story from the first pages.  Her struggles to form meaningful relationships with those around her are understandable as she grapples with her mother’s death when she was six, her father’s cold distance.  Amelia is one of those complicated characters who, like Scarlett in Gone with the Wind, is both dislikeable and yet too similar to myself.

The Algebra of Snow follows Amelia’s winter in the Adirondacks—from the time the rest of the tourists leave their cozy summer cabins on the September long weekend until the snows begin to melt.  The ending was ambiguous… Amelia has found a new friend, yet she hasn’t returned to her mathematics career or left her lonely cabin.  She has survived the isolation, freezing cold, and near starvation of the winter, yet I wanted more of a hint of change as a result of those circumstances.

Ginger Moran’s novel reminded me of Betty Jane Hegerat, for both write with the same attention to the small details of everyday life.  Both of Hegerat’s novels take place in the space of a few days, while Moran’s novel takes place in the space of a small cabin.  These authors delve deeply into characters in situations we can all identify with and leave the reader thinking hard.  (I do feel it necessary to mention that some scenes in The Algebra of Snow between Amelia and her husband or the dark stranger contained more details than I wanted.)

The Algebra of Snow is Ginger’s third novel and was nominated for a Pushcart Editor’s Choice Award.  She has a Ph.D. in Literature and Creative Writing and has been published in a variety of journals and literary magazines.  Come back on Wednesday for my interview with Ginger about how she became a writer and what inspires her to write!