Boy, Snow, Bird [Unabridged] [Audible Audio Edition] Author: | Language: English | ISBN:
B00IU15A24 | Format: PDF, EPUB
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In the winter of 1953, Boy Novak arrives by chance in a small town in Massachusetts, looking, she believes, for beauty - the opposite of the life she' s left behind in New York. She marries a local widower and becomes stepmother to his winsome daughter, Snow Whitman. A wicked stepmother is a creature Boy never imagined she' d become, but elements of the familiar tale of aesthetic obsession begin to play themselves out when the birth of Boy' s daughter, Bird, who is dark-skinned, exposes the Whitmans as light-skinned African Americans passing for white. Among them, Boy, Snow, and Bird confront the tyranny of the mirror to ask how much power surfaces really hold.
Dazzlingly inventive and powerfully moving, Boy, Snow, Bird is an astonishing and enchanting novel. With breathtaking feats of imagination, Helen Oyeyemi confirms her place as one of the most original and dynamic literary voices of our time.
Direct download links available for Download Epub Boy, Snow, Bird
- Audible Audio Edition
- Listening Length: 9 hours and 19 minutes
- Program Type: Audiobook
- Version: Unabridged
- Publisher: Recorded Books
- Audible.com Release Date: March 6, 2014
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00IU15A24
[Spoiler warning: because of the way BOY, SNOW, BIRD is structured, it's difficult to discuss the novel without giving away plot points that emerge around the halfway point. This review won't reveal anything that isn't discussed in the cover copy or implicit in the mythic structure, but readers who want to come to the novel not knowing anything should stop here, with my strong recommendation for this novel about identity and the ambiguities of race, gender, and family life.]
The title of Helen Oyeyemi's excellent new novel derives from the names of its three female protagonists. Boy is Boy Novak, who escapes an abusive childhood in 1950s New York and comes to the Massachusetts town of Flax Hill, eventually marrying local widower Arturo Whitman. Snow is Arturo's daughter, a girl of uncommon beauty who makes Boy obscurely uncomfortable. And Bird is the daughter Boy and Arturo have together, whose dark skin reveals the family's secret: Arturo, his late wife, and their families were all African-Americans passing as white. Boy, worried about what the difference between Snow and Bird will mean for her own daughter and plagued by demons of her own, sends Snow away to live with relatives. But years later, when Bird is a teenager, Snow returns...
Some readers will already have identified the fairy tale of which this is a loose retelling; others will recognize it after learning that Boy, Snow, and Bird all have a strange fascination with mirrors. But the emphasis is on "loose" rather than "retelling:" those expecting a point-for-point recasting of Snow White will be disappointed.
I've heard quite a bit of praise for British novelist Helen Oyeyemi, who is known for combining mythology and other traditional stories with more commonplace matter. BOY, SNOW, BIRD is her fifth novel and the first one I've read. I'm having difficultly untangling my feelings about it.
BOY, SNOW, BIRD is inspired by Snow White and American history. (It's set in the fifties.) Boy, the narrator of the first and the last section, is a young woman who runs away from home when it becomes clear that her father might kill her one day. She makes a new life for herself in a small town, friendships, dates, a job, the works. But her new life has unexpected complications, including the other two eponymous characters. Bird narrates the second part, and Snow doesn't narrate at all. I want Snow's point of view, but it makes sense, given that so much of the book is about how people perceive Snow and whether their perception is right.
One thing I truly enjoyed is how my perception of BOY, SNOW, BIRD changed as I was reading it. It wasn't the story I - or Boy - expected. There are, for instance, little seeds of what will become major plot points in the first half, but it's easy to overlook them as just bits of set dressing. BOY, SNOW, BIRD is a novel that tackles complex subjects while keeping the focus on people and their actions. The Snow White theme provides structure, but BOY, SNOW, BIRD has no easily digestible moral.
My issue is that I felt adrift at the end of the novel. I was thoroughly engrossed, and then it ended. There's a small catharsis at the end, but very small. I felt like the characters' journeys weren't through. I don't think there was much story left, but there was something.
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