In The Snow Forest: Three Novellas.

New York, NY W.W. Norton & Company, 2000. Paperback First Edition Thus; First Printing indicated. First Edition Thus; First Printing indicated. Near Fine in Wraps: shows only the most minute indications of use: light wear to the extremities; mildest rubbing; former owner's name and date at the front flyleaf; the faintest smuding at the outside edges. The binding remains square and secure; the text is clean. Very close to 'As New'. NOT a Remainder, Book-Club, or Ex-Library. 8vo. 195pp. Trade Paperback. Parvin writes with grace and confidence, and his stories, while all very different from one another, have a lot in common. The surroundings are harsh and well-depicted, the characters are all vividly drawn and approaching middle age, and the tales are suspenseful in a cool, calculated style. There is a sense of seriousness, as if each of the protagonists knows he or she is at a crossroads and there is no turning back. The first novella depicts a desperate ex-con, Gibbs, who makes off with his girlfriend's stash of money, a stolen car, and heads west in an attempt to get away from his past and start anew. You can sense the internal demons pushing Gibbs toward trouble, and feel his struggle to maintain his poise in the mythical Montana which had been the stuff of dreams in his prison cell back east. He seems to think all of his troubles will be solved upon reaching the wild west, and as readers we know better all along. The title story for me was the most effective of the bunch. A logger disabled by a shoulder injury is forced to miss the season, and instead stays home at his rustic cabin where he begins a painstaking courtship with an unwed mother whose child is gravely ill. I loved the scene where he chaperones a group of girls on an organized walk in the woods. There are some incredibly moving passages here, as you sense the gradual awakening of feelings in Darby and Harper, while you somehow know the ending is not going to be storybook. The final story had parts that I thought were as good as anything in the book, but was somewhat unsatisfying as a whole. Menno's Granddaughter involves a woman, Lindsay, who was divorced and then widowed by a famous writer who left her in California, remarried and then killed himself in a small town in Wyoming. I am giving away nothing since the action of the story takes place a couple of years later as Lindsay boards a series of trains to take her east to the Hudson Valley to visit her parents, while she composes a long letter to her deceased husband. She is full of curiosity about the town in Wyoming where her husband Whit ended up, and through a coincidence that I thought was a little contrived, she ends up there herself for awhile due to a blizzard. The scenes with Lindsay and second wife Alex were fascinating. All in all, I highly recommend the book. Parvin is a strong new voice in contemporary fiction, with a deep understanding of human emotions. Landscapes come alive in his vivid depictions, and his paragraphs are full of hidden meaning. I breezed through all of these stories fairly quickly, and intend to reread them over time to appreciate the grace and power of Parvin's prose.