I read the first few pages of this book on Amazon. It’s a great start. Two kids larking about in the snow. One throws a snowball and misses the other, hitting the preacher’s pregnant wife instead. She goes into labour, has the child, and in the process suffers some kind of mental upset.
The snowball thrower feels no guilt at all, but the kid he missed finds himself living with the guilt for the rest of his life. This book is the story of that life, and the effect that the guilt has upon it.
Good idea, well executed, and an excellent closure at the furthest end of the book that ties it all up in a neat and satisfying manner. And actually it’s a better ending than I first realised, as it was only a couple of hours after I’d read it that I realised quite what had happened.
But there’s a whole stretch of life in the middle that I’d like to have skipped. I didn’t, of course, or what would have been the point of starting if you weren’t going to read it properly?
So it’s left me a bit undecided. Great idea. Well written. I couldn’t have changed a single word to make it any better. And yet, and yet, and yet… it didn’t grab me. It took too circuitous a route to get from that first thrown snowball to the denouement.
Rating: 
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