Snow

by Betsy Howie

A darkly comic, absurdist, and highly original story of one woman's quest to find herself. In the dead of winter, her marriage over, a young woman leaves New York City with her two cats and drives... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0151002738
• ISBN13: 9780151002733
• Release Date: February 1998
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.7" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

An unusual furry tale

In the dead of winter, her marrige over, a young woman leaves the city with her two cats and drives north with little more than a few cans of Spam and the vague hope of reinventing herself from ground zero. Outside all is white, but inside, her live begins to unfold before her in vivid color. Wishes can come true in the cabin - but will Vinny the cat's one special wish finally help the woman find her way to a true sense of peace? A very surreal book, sometimes confusing, but never dull. The two cats - clever, talkative Vinny, who claims to have had thousands of past lives; the innocent, quiet dancer Sophie - and a dull witted yet loyal polar bear named Simon provided the humor, and the woman was a powerful, inspiring character. Unusual, but worth reading.

Examines the mysteries of life, love, and happiness.

Vivid imagery in this book places the reader alongside the author, to understand the probing questions, to feel the painful discoveries, and to applaud the healing insights she discovers in her struggle to find her true self. While the story line is fairly "heavy", the development of the "plot" is imaginative and delightful, making this a very enjoyable reading experience. One can almost believe in the actual existence of talking and dancing cats as well as Spam-loving bears - they come to life as observers of the world around them, offering support and insight when they are most needed. If read straight through in one sitting, the reader could overlook some of the profound truths as they are revealed. Betsy Howie demonstrates extraordinary insight into woman's truggle with the true meaning of life, love, and happiness in this ever-changing world. I could easily identify with the woman in the story, and thus found answers to some of my own questions and struggles. I await in eager anticipation for further books by Betsy Howie!

Isolation repairs a split personality.

Lots of people beat stress by turning to large bodies of water. They swim, they fish, they daydream on these waters. The Atlantic, the Pacific, the Gulf--they each have calming properties. But our heroine hasn't heard of the healing properties of blue water, so she turns to an isolated cabin practically buried in the snow. Her healing starts when physical pain from the cold snow intrudes on the life of her mind. Each of her split personalities pulls together as she first succombs to her inner pain then triumphs over it. Survival in a snow bound cabin becomes her first priority. The reader is asked to make a tremendous suspension of disbelief in order to accept the heroine's cat with split personalities too. But if you can accept that she talks to herself as one of several personnas, then why not her cat?

Once into it, a wonderful and uplifting read.

Betsy Howie's Snow took me a few pages to get into -- she starts without providing the context upon which we readers tend to depend. I also feared that the book would be an angst-filled and self-absorbed ramble...it starts out feeling that way. After 20 pages, I was hooked. With creativity, humor, and heart, Howie takes us through a woman's self-discovery and her meeting of herself. There were moments when I felt I had lost the storyline, but that was due to my concrete thinking rather than any fault of the author. She asks the reader to stretch reality, break out of the dictates of linear time and one-dimensional experience, and imagine an inner world as real and tangible as the one we usually think of as "reality." I loved the cat, Vinny, who gently encourages the narrator on her journey of self-discovery. I loved that Vinny, himself, ended up learning about self-acceptance, truth, and happiness. I recommend this book highly!