The Snow Queen

February 17, 2014
Two brothers grapple with aging, loss, and spirituality in this haunting sixth novel from the author of The Hours and By Nightfall. Barrett Meeks, a middle-aged retail worker with boyfriend troubles, is walking through Central Park one evening when he notices a mysterious light in the sky—a light he can’t help but feel is “apprehending ... as he imagined a whale might apprehend a swimmer, with a grave and regal and utterly unfrightened curiosity.” Uncertain what to make of his vision, Barrett returns to the Bushwick, Brooklyn, apartment he shares with his drug-addicted brother, Tyler, and Tyler’s wife, Beth, whose cancer has come to dominate the brothers’ attention. As ever, Cunningham has a way with run-on sentences, and the novel’s lengthy monologues run the gamut from mortality to post-2000 New York City. But at its heart, Cunningham’s story is about family, and how we reconcile our closest human relationships with our innermost thoughts, hopes, and fears. Tyler and Barrett have “a certain feral knowledge of each other” and enjoy “the quietude of growing up together.” They connect over Beth’s illness, and contemplate the unique pressures of dying before one’s time. “Did Persephone sometimes find the summer sun too hot, the flowers more gaudy than beautiful?” Beth wonders. “Did she ever, even briefly, think fondly of the dim silence of Hades?” Cunningham has not attempted to answer any of life’s great questions here, but his poignant and heartfelt novel raises them in spades.

March 15, 2014
An apparition spotted in Central Park has a man marveling at the place of magic in our lives. Or is it all just a trick of the light? November 2004: Middle-aged Barrett, bright but aimless, has just been dumped and has hit the skids professionally. He's moved into a Brooklyn apartment with his songwriter brother, Tyler, who hides a cocaine addiction and fumes at Dubya-era politics while caring for his fiancee, Beth, in rapid decline from Stage 4 cancer. Amid all this, Barrett is struck by a vision of "pale aqua light" in the night sky that suggests something bigger and more transcendent. Fast-forward a year: Beth's in remission, Barrett is settled, and Tyler's career is looking up. This study of fickle fate from Cunningham (By Nightfall, 2010, etc.) has its share of virtues. Since his debut, A Home at the End of the World (1990), he's masterfully characterized ad hoc families, and he's superb at highlighting the ways that small gestures (a finger pressed to a lover's lips; a shift in the way two people sit together) reveal deeper emotional currents. Here, he deftly allows Barrett's vision its power of wonderment while keeping the story firmly realistic. (References to fairy tales, magic and miracles are sparingly but strategically deployed.) Still, none of this keeps the novel from being somewhat slight, particularly in comparison to his debut and The Hours (1998): Life changes, we're all a little open to spiritual suggestion, and why is this surprising? Barrett begins attending church, but Cunningham treats this more as a dash of characterization than an exploration of faith. A drama involving Tyler energizes the closing pages but feels distant from the book's central concerns. A stellar writer working on a small canvas; Cunningham has done greater work.

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Starred review from March 15, 2014
Like By Nightfall (2010), Cunningham's elegant and haunting new novel examines the complex dynamics among a couple and a brother. In this configuration, Barrett Meeks, a poetically minded man in his late thirties who has just been dumped by his most recent boyfriend via text message, shares a Brooklyn apartment with Tyler, his older musician-bartender brother, and Beth, Tyler's great love. Beth and Barrett work in Liz's vintage shop. She's 52; her current lover, Andrew, is 28. Beth is undergoing full-throttle treatment for cancer. Tyler is struggling to write the perfect love song for their wedding, and breaking his promise not to do drugs. Barrett, long afflicted by his flitting interest in everything, remains in an altered state after seeing a strangely animated celestial light over dark and snowy Central Park. As his characters try to reconcile exalted dreams and crushing reality, Cunningham orchestrates intensifying inner monologues addressing such ephemeral yet essential aspects of life as shifting perspectives, tides of desire and fear, rampancy versus languidness, and revelation and receptivity. Tender, funny, and sorrowful, Cunningham's beautiful novel is as radiant and shimmering as Barrett's mysterious light in the sky, gently illuminating the gossamer web of memories, feelings, and hopes that mysteriously connect us to each other as the planet spins its way round and round the sun. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Pulitzer Prizewinning Cunningham will tour with this resplendent novel in sync with national advertising and extensive online promotion.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)

Starred review from March 15, 2014

In early 1900s Fatima, Portugal, three shepherd children were transfixed by a vision of Mary, the Blessed Virgin, visible only to them. Mary revealed three secrets: the reality of hell, how to save souls from the fiery furnace, and the future deaths of prominent individuals. Similarly, this new book by Cunningham explores the interconnected lives of Barrett, Tyler, and Beth, three individuals awaiting deliverance from their own personal dystopia, a dilapidated Bushwick, Brooklyn, apartment. Walking alone through Central Park, Barrett sees a vision in the sky. As he ruminates over his religious experience, his brother Tyler continues caring for Beth, his cancer-stricken wife-to-be, while concealing his battle with drug addiction. Though these characters are all searching for redemption (whether it's through religion, rehab, or a cure), the secret of humanity is ultimately revealed to each through the others' lives. VERDICT In concise yet descriptive language, Cunningham weaves the secret of transcendence through the mundane occurrences of everyday life. Those who enjoyed his Pulitzer Prize-winning The Hours will be pleased to see similar themes emerging in his newest novel. [See Prepub Alert, 11/11/13.]--Joshua Finnell, Denison Univ. Lib., Granville, OH

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 1, 2013

In New York's Central Park, lovelorn Barrett Meeks is transfixed by a luminous white light beaming down, which induces a religious conversion of sorts. Meanwhile, his musician brother, Tyler, is trying to write a wedding song for his fiancee, Beth, who's mortally ill. Once more, Pulitzer Prize winner Cunningham delicately tears apart our innermost emotions and brings us to the light.

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.