White Bird in a Blizzard

Laura Kasischke has transformed a real-life crime, grisly and comical, into a meditation on cruelty. All of her characters have sharp edges; they crash against each other like ice floes. Kat's mother, the vanishing Eve, is so vicious to her daughter, it's a relief that she makes her odd exit. But there is no such thing as one abusive parent. There is always the attacker and the accomplice, the one who fails to defend the child. Which, in the end, is crueler? Kasischke's language is alarmingly vivid -- the bloody cupids are a particularly striking image -- and her pace has the drowsiness of someone sliding into unconsciousness in a snowbank. "White Bird" is a strange and remarkable novel, highly recommended.

I thought that White Bird in a Blizzard was a very good book, i enjoyed it so much from when you start when her mother just turned up missing every possible idea of what had happend to her mother, and when you reach the end the actual solution is the last thing you thought of.

By the middle of this book, I felt lost in the blizzard! So half-way through I was all set to put it down and forget about it. How much could I take of these musings of a 16-year-old? However, she is smarter (and more articulate) than your average 16-year-old. It was like an avalanche of too much introspection! Yet something made me stick with the book. And the ending was so gripping and surprising that it was well worth it! So, plow through it--you'll be glad you did!

Laura Kasischke's White Bird in a Blizzard startles and intrigues with its powerful images of suburban anomie and teenage lust and confusion. Kat Connors is a sharply drawn sixteen-year-old at the beginning of the book, intensely preoccupied by her newly sexual self. Her lovely, dissatisfied mother has just disappeared, abandoning Kat and her dim, unambitious father. Kat's memories of her mother weave into her dreams; the chill blank white of the January day her mother vanished become both the blankness of Evie Connors' life and an image of her disappearance -- she has become white on white and faded into insubstantiality. Kat tells her story through four successive Januaries. Each year Kat -- and the reader -- discover more about Evie, more about Kat's relationship with Phil, her sexy boyfriend next door, and about Kat's opaque father. Throughout, dreams of ice, feathers and smothering cold disturb Kat. The power of these images and the sense of mystery lure the reader through a story which becomes unfocused as Kat grows older. Her quaint grandmothers arrive and comment on Evie and abandonment. Kat seduces the hyper-virile detective who investigates her mother's disappearance. Phil becomes inexplicably distant, yet continues to identify himself as Kat's boyfriend. He behaves with a kind of sensibility at odds with his established personality as a thoughtless, proudly ignorant, over-sexed high school boy. Kat drifts through the years, occasionally prodded into deeper thought by her therapist. At last the detective, hearing about Kat's dreams, provides Kat the clue to understanding Evie Connors' disappearance. The language of Kat's final discovery is striking, though the revelation has been set up rather obviously. I enjoyed White Bird for its images of loss and bleakness, and for its depiction of a girl surging into her sexuality, but Evie Connors' entrapment in suburban hell seemed rather dated both for when the book was written and for the date it is set (late 80's). The characters, with the exception of Kat, feel prodded into place, rather than growing inevitably into themselves. A beautiful thin book that I would recommend for its lovely evocative language and dreamy tone -- and for lusty, confused Kat -- in spite of its weaknesses of plot and characterization.

Kasischke is a remarkable talent. Her book was beautiful simply for the poetry. It was also touchingly emotionally evocative. I was so sorry to finish it I had to find out what else Kasischke had written so I could get more. I hope she reads this. I teach creative writing at the University of Colorado at Denver and wish I could write as well as this woman.