Review: Spare, Compressed Language and a Beautiful Story
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 07 7, 2012
I looked up the area of Alberta, Canada where this magnificent novel is set. Miles and miles of forest, filled with deer, birds, wolves and bears and other animals, but not many people. Especially the grizzly bears are unpredictable and dangerous to humans. Our heroine in the book is Anne Mueller, and an encounter with a grizzly cost her husband his life.The book begins with a visit to Anne's lonely cabin from her nearest neighbor's 13-year-old daughter, who has run away from home. This girl, whose name is Sarah and whose nickname is Little Bit, finds a loving surrogate mother in Anne and finds safety in her house, protected by Anne and her big Bouvier dog, Timber.I realized early on that this book is not so much about the beauty of the north woods and the challenges of carving out a life there, where your nearest neighbor is five miles away, and there are only five families within a radius of an hour's drive. The book is about mother-daughter relationships, and specifically about running away from your problems. Anne's real daughter ran away years ago, not long after Anne's husband's tragic death, and they haven't had contact since. Her budding relationship with the girl, Little Bit, reawakens old painful memories of what happened between her and her own daughter, and Anne realizes she will have to confront her greatest fears and weaknesses in order to go on living.Out of this simple and classical premise, Christina Carson builds an elegiac and moving novel. The vast and beautiful and dangerous wilderness stands for the unexplored spaces in the human heart, the places you don't even dare to go. I read the book slowly, revelling in the spare, compressed language and content to follow every meander of Anne Mueller's thoughts as she progressed in her exploration of the dark interior of her own soul. This book is a real winner, a classic.