Our Book Club pick for April was Snow Angels by Stewart O'Nan. Perhaps not a seasonally appropriate choice, but still one that I was very happy with. Out of all the books we've (or I've) read for Book Club, this one is the easiest to recommend, but also the most depressing. Sure, The Moviegoer was depressing, but in a way that's hard to verbalize. For me, while I enjoyed The Moviegoer, the language got in the way of a visceral connection. With Snow Angels, the language (I almost typed "prose," but I'm not in an English program anymore. I don't have to use that word anymore! Barf) was unobtrusive and simple, bringing the devastation of the story to the forefront.
Snow Angels deals with two plots, one focusing on a fourteen-year-old boy, Arthur, and the other on his former babysitter, Annie, and her husband, Glenn. One of these stories is far more tragic than the other, and it's a real credit to O'Nan as an author that he's able to make us care just as deeply about the more trivial story.
What made this novel stand out so much for me was O'Nan's attention to the little high-school details; the indignities of riding the bus, the marching band director trying in vain to extract some kind of greatness out of a bunch of bumbling kids, and most importantly, the real selfishness of 14 year old kids. I'm pretty sure Little Alex never went through a phase like that, but most kids, myself included, did. In one scene, Arthur's parents are arguing in the next room as he prepares for a date, and he thinks, "I wasn't going to let anything ruin my happiness." Well, yeah. That's being 14.
So in a way, sure, this is a book about "growing up," but it's a lot more than that, too. The last paragraph is one of the most quietly crushing passages I've ever read. Highly recommended, you guys! You'll go O'Nanners for O'Nan (sorry).
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