Novelist Sandra Dallas commands a large following of fans. I have not been one of them, due solely to the fact that I'd never read one of her books. A friend recommended The Persian Pickle Club as a fun read, and I know that her more recent Tallgrass got good reviews.
Her latest novel, Whiter Than Snow, looked lonely on the library shelf, so I checked it out. This novel is centered around an avalanche in 1920 in the mining town of Swandyke, Colorado. I have no idea how historically accurate this is--all I know is that there is indeed a ghost town called Swandyke in Colorado.
In the fictional world, however, this avalanche occurred, falling onto nine children as they walked home from school. The novel starts with the avalanche, then moves on to give us insight into five different characters' pasts, one per chapter, as their lives lead up to this moment.
In each chapter, I found a compelling character. I enjoyed seeing what life might have been like for each of these people. Then suddenly it would be April 20, 1920, and I would be swept into a whole new character. The first couple of times this was tolerable, but it got on my nerves by the 4th or 5th character. Not because the characters weren't interesting, but because I got shuttled so abruptly to the next.
These lives all become intertwined in the aftermath of the avalanche. I appreciated Dallas' effort to show the strong points and shortcomings of every person, emphasizing that we all fall short, and that tragedy is not a punishment on one person or another. However, it was too quickly and neatly done, and in the end the story lacked the depth I would have liked to find.
Whiter Than Snow is a quick read with a few things going for it, but it doesn't have the resonance it appears to aim for. Sometime I'll have to read Tallgrass to see what all the fuss is about.
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