November 1, 2023
Desperate efforts to find a woman and child who have disappeared into an Alaskan blizzard bring forth memories of past tragedies. When 10-year-old Thomas' hand slips from the grip of his live-in caretaker, Bess, as she bends to re-tie her shoe during a devastating snowstorm, one to which she ill-advisedly exposed him and herself, he is quickly swallowed up by the elements. His chances of survival are slim and hers aren't much better. A mystery woman from California whom the locals think is half-crazy, Bess was brought to Alaska by the boy's uncle Benedict after the precocious Thomas' father (also named Thomas) abandoned him and his mother died. Reluctantly, Benedict ventures out into the storm to find Thomas and Bess, accompanied by neighbor Cole, a misogynistic drunk. "A kid and a pretty woman lost in a blizzard, though?" muses Benedict. "Best as I can recollect, no such thing's happened before." The deeper they penetrate the blizzard, the more violent memories surface. Everyone, including Freeman, a displaced Black Vietnam veteran who lives nearby, carries trauma around with them, including the murder of a sibling and a patricidal killing. There are frequent references to ghosts. Gothic in tone and Western in spirit, French writer Vingtras' first novel, a bestseller in France that won the Booksellers' Prize there for the year's best novel, is short on smiles and long on vitriol and recrimination. Ultimately, the flashbacks, narrated by the characters, outbalance the physical descriptions of the storm, which never carries the threat it should. But the book commands the reader's attention until the end. A chilly tale marked by twisted fates.
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November 27, 2023
In this elegant debut, Vingtras details the high-stakes search for a missing child from the alternating perspectives of four narrators. Bess, an attractive young woman, has lost track of a precocious, initially unnamed 10-year-old boy in the middle of a heavy snowstorm somewhere in Alaska (“I let go of his hand to retie my laces and I lost him”). As the storm grows fiercer, Bess’s search for the boy intensifies, and the three other narrators come into focus. Benedict lives with Bess for unspecified reasons and is particularly invested in recovering the child; Cole is their rage-filled, alcoholic neighbor; and Freeman, a military veteran and ex-cop, has traveled to Alaska on a mysterious assignment. In short, spiky chapters, Vingtras slowly doles out clues about the characters’ connections to one another, keeping readers deliciously off-balance as Bess’s search for her charge joins up with larger, more sinister machinations. With masterly pacing, the author knits together a noirish and affecting tale about desperate souls colliding. It’s worth staying up all night to finish.
Starred review from December 1, 2023
Written in spare prose, Vingtras' debut is set in Alaska's bleak wilderness and focuses on characters who have secrets--from Freeman, who survived Vietnam and became a policeman, then made a terrible mistake; to Bess, who blames herself for a long-ago tragedy and has drifted ever since; to Cole and Clifford, who seem like good ole boys, but they are hiding their true selves. Benedict has never forgiven his brother, Thomas, for leaving their family. Benedict's parents sent him to find Thomas, and he traveled to every state, finally finding traces of Thomas in New York. But Thomas had fled again, leaving behind a dying woman who'd borne his child. The woman begs Benedict to take the child and raise him, and Benedict reluctantly agrees to do so. On his way back to Alaska with the boy, Benedict meets Bess, who agrees to come to Alaska and help look after the child. But life is isolating and difficult in the icy wilderness, and Bess soon discovers terrible secrets that convince her she must flee with the boy. As the story builds to its stunning conclusion, readers will find themselves deeply shocked and yet ultimately satisfied with the unexpected resolution to this suspenseful, heart-wrenching tale.
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