Book Review: 2007-012 Snow, Ashes by Alyson Hagy

Snow, Ashes by Alyson Hagy
2007 by Graywolf Press, 214 pages

Alyson Hagy shows herself to be quite versatile with this, her second novel.  Where her earlier effort, Keeneland, was completley set in contemprary times, and in Kentucky around the sport of horse racing and was rather fast paced, Snow,Ashes is set in Wyoming and Korea, dips back into the 1950's, and aside from a war scene or two, travels at a much slower clip.

Snow, Ashes goes back and forth in time, as the novel is broken up into four sections, and follows the friendship between Fremont Adams and C.D. Hobbs, with solid appearances by Fremont's siblings, older brother, Buren, and younger sister, Charlotte. 

Hagy's writing and storytelling are extremely impressive as she gets her readers to care about this quartet who either don't open up much, or do (in Buren's case specifically) in an overly rude manner.  But Hagy gets in the heads of Fremont and C.D. just enough to make it difficult to put the book down for long.

The friendship between Fremont and Hobbs drives the story and is one that developed at an early age as Hobbs' mother all but ignored him early on in his life and he was virtually adopted by the Adams family, jumping right in and doing his (and Buren's) share of the work on their sheep ranch.  A bit strange, Hobbs was like Fremont's slightly younger brother that needed looking after. 

After an incredible prologue, one that describes the two boys being initiated into the world of docking sheep (removal of testicles and tails), in which their friendship (at about age 11 in 1942) is firmly established, Hagy jumps forward to 1995, when Hobbs returns to the Adams' Trumpet Bell Ranch after shuffling around the country from job to job. His return is a silent one, it's only through the actions of the dogs on the ranch that Fremont is first aware.  The two fall back into a routine fairly quickly, but it's a much different one, a routine that only clicks if the two are working hard, to near exhaustion, and have only this work to talk about.

From here, Hagy jumps back to 1950 and the young men being in Korea, a landscape not so different from their own Wyoming, though with less livestock.  Bitter cold winters, nothing stopping the wind, and with the bonus of a little thing called the Chinese Army wishing them ill.  It is through this section, and another section set in 1975 (that brings Charlotte into play more), that Hagy brings to the reader an understanding of why the relationship has become somewhat stilted - why the men are glad to have only work to talk about.  In the final section however, brought back to the novel's current of 1995, Hagy brings it all home, wrapping many things, though certainly not all, how lifelike would that be, up. 

This is a great novel about friendship, about getting past events, both from the past and the current, about family.  In other words about what is both fun and difficult about being in this world on a daily basis.  Hagy does this with writing that sings with apt similes, and describes landscapes like nobody's business.  Her characters are uniquely interesting individuals with enough going on in their lives that one has trouble setting their lives, and this book, aside for long.

4 stars.

Comments

[Cliff Garstang]

Just got this from Graywolf and I'm looking forward to reading it!