Snow Island [Hardcover]

Katherine Towler (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 2002

What is life like for a girl coming of age in the shadow of World War II, a girl who lives on a small, isolated island populated by quahoggers and eccentrics?

This tender first novel follows the fate of sixteen-year-old Alice Daggett, who still feels the presence of her father who died six years earlier, and of George Tibbit, a reclusive loner who returns to the island each year in an excessive act of homage to the two women who raised him there.

Snow Island tells of their isolated lives and the impact that WWII has on all of their worlds. Both Alice and George find their lives linked, and changed, forever by the events that happen far from the small New England community that defines them.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Wartime disrupts the lives of the inhabitants of a New England islet off the coast of Rhode Island in this graceful debut novel. The men of Snow Island engage in the dangerous business of quahogging, and their families eke out a living running small businesses that depend on the wealthier summer residents for survival. Alice Daggett is 16 years old in 1941. She attends school in a one-room schoolhouse with twins Lydia and Pete Giberson, the only companions her age on the island, and has shouldered the responsibility of keeping the family store running since the death of her father five years earlier. The summer season of 1941 gets off to its usual start with the arrival of mysterious loner George Tibbits, who makes his annual pilgrimage to the houses his aunts owned when he was a boy site of a tragedy from which he has never quite recovered. While the rebellious Lydia spends her time with the summer in-crowd, Alice secretly becomes close to Ethan Cunningham, the 26-year-old lighthouse keeper with artistic ambitions. The quiet off-season life of the island changes dramatically after Pearl Harbor: a navy base opens, and Alice and Lydia now spend their free time plane spotting. After Ethan enlists soon followed by Pete and Lydia Alice is left alone to grapple with the consequences of her relationships and her growing sense of self. The story elements here may be familiar, and the inner motivations of some characters (George Tibbits, in particular) remain vague despite explication, but Towler's strength is her deft rendering of time and place. Lyrical and gentle, Alice's wartime coming-of-age and the island itself continues to resonate after the last page.

Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

Adult/High School-A small New England island in the early 1940s is the setting for this lovely first novel. It entwines the stories of 16-year-old Alice Daggett, who lives on Snow Island, and George Tibbits, a reclusive World War I veteran who returns every summer to the place where he grew up. He stays overnight in one of the houses that belonged to his two aunts who raised him after the death of his parents, and who themselves died tragically. But in 1942 he stays for the season, planning to make a boat trip around the island, as he and his beloved Aunt Sarah had always wanted to do when he was a boy. Because of her father's death and her mother's inability to cope, Alice has to run the family store and has little time for a typical teen life. She becomes drawn to Ethan Cunningham, the 26-year-old lighthouse keeper, and together they save George after his boat sinks on his circumnavigation attempt. When the war reaches Snow Island, Ethan enlists. Shortly after he leaves, the teen realizes that she is pregnant, and then learns that he has married. Alice leaves the island; in the end, it is George who returns her kindness by comforting her and helping her to see that it is time to return home. This coming-of-age novel is beautifully written-life on the remote island is easy to visualize and the two stories are smoothly linked. This book should have strong appeal to teens.
Sydney Hausrath, Kings Park Library, Burke, VA
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 287 pages
• Publisher: MacMurray & Beck; First Edition edition (February 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 193156101X
• ISBN-13: 978-1931561013
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,152,849 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars memorable characters, February 26, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Snow Island (Hardcover)

I'm an English professor with a particular interest in contemporary women's fiction. I finished Snow Island a couple of weeks ago and find I remain haunted by the characters and the place. Towler makes an obscure New England island and its inhabitants come thoroughly alive in a lyrical, sensitive narrative that pulled me in and hasn't yet let go. Her rendering of the impact of WWII on local life is extremely compelling. I am still mourning the characters who don't survive and hoping for a sequel that will follow those who do into the post-WWII years. I've read dozens of women's coming-of-age novels and this one is a stand-out, in part because its rendering of a teenage girl is complemented by its focus on an intriguing adult male character, in part because of the skill with which Towler develops the setting. This is an exceptionally well crafted first novel.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "This is one you'll remember for a long time......", February 1, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Snow Island (Hardcover)

This novel has it all - the great atmospherics of an
isolated sumer island, the steadily building faraway
war coming on like the first chill of autumn, the
tender stirrings of first lovedreams, but most of all -
the irrevocable moving together of two completely
different people passing like ships in the night only
to awaken to one another in their hour of deepest need.
The characters grow on you in ways you never imagined
and for a reader who tires easily, this one held my
attention right on through, and that's saying a lot.
A great read here for vacation time or anytime ..riveting
in a sweetly powerful way like a spring shower. Don't let
this one slip by!

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A book you will want to read again, January 20, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Snow Island (Hardcover)

I just put Snow Island down. The author's debut is wonderful. I professionally review books for a newspaper and constantly read hyperbole about debut novels being the greatest thing since....

Snow Island delivers. With convincing characters, a wonderful sense of place, I found myself wanting to retreat to an island just like it.

Bravo Ms. Towler, I look forward to your next!