Synopsis
From the bestselling author of The Pilot's Wife comes a tender and surprising novel about love and its consequences.
Snowshoeing over crusted snow in the woods near their home, twelve-year-old Nicky Dillon and her father come upon something shocking. There, in the pristine winter scene, an abandoned baby wails, its survival made possible only by the coincidence of their having chosen this path for their late afternoon outing.
In the days and weeks that follow, Nicky glimpses corners of the adult world that she never dreamed existed. As she follows the fate of the baby girl and talks with the police officers assigned to investigate, Nicky for the first time asks questions about her life's strange shape. Why has her father moved them to this isolated New England farmhouse? How can they come to terms with the tragedy they left behind? And how can she bridge the chasm between his needs and her own growing sense of the world?
The Washington Post - Chris Bohjalian
The images of Nicky's father alone with his grief or the moment when Nicky menstruates for the first time with no mother with whom to discuss it are authentic and poignant; the complex rush of emotions Nicky experiences around the infant's mom -- fear, fascination and (for a variety of reasons the novel makes clear) adoration -- is a well-drawn microcosm of adolescence. The overall result is a novel that probably won't be studied by Shreve scholars in fifty or a hundred years, but one that nevertheless offers moments that are diverting and pleasurable.