The Center of Winter: A Novel

Like many others I read Hornbacher's memoir 'Wasted' and was impressed at her vast talents as a writer. I was therefore very keen to read her first work of fiction, if a little nervous that it wouldn't match up to it's predecessor's standard. As it turns out, my nerves were completetly unneccesary. 'The Centre of Winter' is, in a single word, breathtaking. Telling the story of a family in 60/70s Minnesotta, who have to learn to pick up the pieces of their lives after the suicide of the father, Arthur. Told from three different perspectives, that of Claire the mother, Esau the oldest son and young Kate, the daughter, each narrative provides a glimpse in the effect of the tragedy. Hornbacher's great skill is her abilty to create a truly convincing 'voice' for each narrator, making the entire story seen totally genuine and realistic. Her characters are very complex and interesting as well, with no cliches and stereotypical devices being used. I highly recommend this novel to anyone looking for a deeply touching, thought-provoking read.

..and even more difficult to put down. Written with compassion for all of the characters, without trying to disguise their flaws, this story explores the secrets that exist in so many of our family stories. I found the change of first person narrator to be refreshing - rather like walking all of the way around a sculpture.

The Schiller family is torn apart by mental illness. The autistic-like symptoms of their son, Esau, has brought Claire and Arnold's Schiller's marriage to the breaking point and Arnold kills himself with a single bullet to the head. In the aftermath, Claire, Esau, and the youngest Schiller child, Kate, must come to terms with Arnold's suicide and learn how to piece their lives back together. Claire's best friend, Donna, is also struggling with her husband's post-Vietnam, Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome and its resulting depression and alcoholism. Donna's son, Davey, helps Kate to cope with the death of her father while Donna provides Claire support. When Donna's husband also comes to a mental breaking point, the two families must learn to re-define what being a normal, small-town family is really all about. Every once in awhile, I find a book that combines beautiful prose with a story I can't put down. The Center of Winter is one of them! This anatomy of a family torn apart by mental illness is so filled with the flavor of Northern Minnesota, I can almost taste it! The seasons of the region are cleverly used by the author as a metaphor for human emotion, the cycle of life and death, and the endless cycles of grief and acceptance. Hornbacher has captured the essence of the major turning points in life in which time both speeds up and slows down, when denial blends with the beginning of deeper awareness. The story is also the anatomy of a suicide and the author has made it impossible not to watch this unfold using a perfect mix of horror and compassion. The changes in narrative voice are a bit jarring, but Hornbacher couldn't have told this story any other way. The tale is more emotional for having avoided the exaggeration of the children's emotional responses. She avoided the risk of hypersentimentality by creating entirely believable characters who behave in entire believable ways. I cried reading this book and I almost never cry at novels.

I have regarded Wasted as my personal bible for the past 4 years and have been waiting for Hornbacher's novel since the first time I closed her tantalizingly chilling memoir. I purchased The Center of Winter and immediately became absorbed by the depth of each narrator. Initially I was worried that I would be let down - for so long I've held Hornbacher on sort of a pedestal and was fearful of being let down. Fortunately, I could not have been more wrong; Ms. Hornbacher has done it again - this time mastering fiction. With beautiful, elaborate descriptions, she accurately pinpoints all of the right words to illustrate universal human emotion that have never quite been voiced with such excruciating detail. The Center of Winter will rock you to your very innermost core, send shivers up your spine, and nestle itself into the darker recesses of your mind.

In a small town in Minnesota, a man commits suicide, leaving a guilt-ridden wife, a 6 yr. old daughter and a mentally ill son. The story is told alternately by the widow, Claire, and the 2 children. This year, I suffered my own center of winter. I wondered if I should be reading this story at this time of my life. But start it I did and I found I could not stop reading. I cared about the characters, I wanted to know how they found their way out of their circle of grief. The back cover promises that "you will be ultimately inspired" - and I was. I will be getting a copy of Marya Hornbacher's first book, "Wasted".