The Snow Train [Paperback]

Joseph Cummins (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2001

Fiction. This debut novel begins in 1952 and tells the story of a young boy whose sister is killed in a car accident, and who is haunted for years to come by her death. Told in an authentic child's voice Cummin's book is reminiscent of Dorothy Allison's Bastard Out of Carolina and Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. "A groundbreaking first novel that tackles nothing less daunting than the fragile psyche of early childhood" - Kaylie Jones, author of A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

It is common enough to find a book written in the first person. But to have the story begin when the narrator is barely verbal, not yet walking, and struggling with potty training is rare indeed. That's what Cummins has given us in his first novel. Robbie O'Conor's father, mother, and big sister aren't quite the fairy-tale family of the 1950s. From the age of eight months, Robbie is covered with a "rash" that makes him the butt of the neighborhood children's jokes and scorn. His big sister, Rosemary, bounces between defending him from others and tormenting him herself. Dad's off selling cars and is seldom seen; Mommy is holed up in her room writing poems for the Detroit Catholic. And even this is idyllic compared with life after Rosie is struck by a car and killed before she enters first grade. The book is divided into two time frames: 1952, when Rosie is Robbie's main focus, and 1957, when everything seems to revolve around the rash. Robbie enters the hospital for an experimental treatment and finds that children carry the same cruelty with them everywhere. Yet in this setting, bonds are formed unlike those found in the world at large. Throughout, Cummins inhabits the mind of a child and gives him voice as few writers could. Recommended for public libraries. Debbie Bogenschutz, Cincinnati State Technical & Community Coll.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"...Cummins inhabits the mind of a child and gives him a voice as few writers could." -- Library Journal, July 2001

"An intriguing worldview, meticulously assembled with an artist's inspired touch." -- Kirkus Reviews, July 1, 2001

"It's intimate, imaginative and, by the startling conclusion, blissful." -- Melvin Jules Bukiet, author of After and Strange Fire

"Joseph Cummins has written a groundbreaking first novel that tackles nothing less daunting than the fragile psyche of early childhood." -- Kaylie Jones, author of A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries

"The Snow Train provides a vision of childhood that is both intimate and epic." -- Henry Flesh, author of Massage and Michael

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 290 pages
• Publisher: Akashic Books; First Printing edition (January 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1888451238
• ISBN-13: 978-1888451238
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,958,150 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

After working for ten years at the Book of the Month Club, where he was Creative Director of several clubs, including Book of the Month Club, Quality Paperback Book Club, and One Spirit Book Club, Joseph Cummins went freelance in 2001. Since then he has published twelve books, mainly works of popular history. His publications include a novel, The Snow Train (Akashic Books, 2001); History's Great Untold Stories (National Geographic, 2007); Turn Around and Run Like Hell (Murdoch Books, 2006); Great Rivals in History (Murdoch Books, 2007); Anything For A Vote: Dirty Tricks, Cheap Shots and October Surprises in U.S. Presidential Campaigns (Quirk Books, 2008); Cast Away: Shipwrecked, Marooned or Cast Adrift on the High Seas (Murdoch Books, 2008); The War Chronicles, Volumes I & 2 (Fair Winds Press, 2008-9); First Encounters with Unknown People (Murdoch Books, 2009); and The World's Bloodiest History (Fair Winds Press, 2010).His forthcoming books include Eaten by A Giant Clam: Great Adventures in Natural Science (Murdoch Books, September 2010); and Why Some Wars Never End: The Longest Conflicts in History (Fair Winds Press, November 2010).
Joe's YA credits include President Obama and a New Birth of Freedom (Collins, 2009) and the History's Greatest Hits: Famous Events We Should Know More About (Murdoch Books, 2010). All told, his titles have sold over 150,000 copies in America, Australia, Canada and the UK.
Joe lives with his wife and daughter in Maplewood, New Jersey.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars worth the wait, September 10, 2001

By 

elisa cibrario "TV connoisseur" (long beach, new york USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Snow Train (Paperback)

I won't be coy and disguise myself here . . .I've been a colleague of Joe's for more than ten years, when he started writing The Snow Train. This book is his heart and soul, and I'm not exaggerating when I say that it moved me immeasurably. To hear about a book for a decade, and then to finally read it -- and know that the rest of the world can now, too -- is probably something I'll never experience again. I want to use words like "page-turning," "tear-inducing," "touching," "emotionally charged" and "awesome," as all readers will, but the phrase that encapsulates my true feelings about The Snow Train is: "as close to perfect as a first novel can get."
Way to go, Joe!

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An adventurous voice that doesn't get snowed under, November 14, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: The Snow Train (Paperback)

Anyone who approaches this novel without great skepticism hasn't considered the unforgiving challenges that confronted its author. For starters, Mr. Cummins had to write in the "voice" of an infant. This undertaking not only smacks of gimmickry, but conjures up embarrassing images of a rapt uncle goo-gooing to his baby niece. No less thorny was the author's decision to plague his pint-sized protagonist with a ghastly skin disorder, a condition which must rest somewhere between single and double amputee on the list of appealing fictive characteristics. Finally, Mr. Cummins set his novel in the 1950s, a period which few writers can revisit without revising. But The Snow Train handles both the tyke and Ike years of its hero and setting without leaving readers lost in a field of corniness: Robbie's playmates, like his parents' martinis, are a blessing waiting to bite; the solitude that frees him from bullying also drags him into deepest loneliness. But for all its freakish scabs and bitter frosts, this book possesses charm and warmth. Mr. Cummins tells his story with a flinty lyricism--a fixation on the mysteries of childhood and weather as imagined by a good Irishman and translated into the close and precise prose of a good American. Humorous and disturbing, sensuous and daring, realistic and fantastic, The Snow Train results from an almost spiritual and philosophical concentration on what it means to be a child. I realized this shortly after beginning the novel, when I began to see things freshly, strangely; it took me a while to grasp that I was hearing fellow adults and seeing autumn leaves from the vantage of Robbie. I'll most certainly measure future reads against this book.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars First rate fiction, October 30, 2001

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Snow Train (Paperback)

I happen to buy this on Amazon a few weeks ago, and I don't normally write reviews of books, but this one was great.
The same way I marveled at how well Wally Lamb captured the voice of his heroine in "She's Come Undone," I was astonished at how authentically this author captured the voice of a child. We keep hearing from psychologists how significant early childhood is, but I don't know of any other novels that play in this arena, and are so successful at it. It's a beautiful character study, but also just good old fashioned story telling that kept me turning the pages as I watched this young boy face obstacles that felt both universal and yet very personal. Perhaps it was how vividly the author captured the mid-50s, perhaps it was because everything was seen from a child's point of view; I often felt like I was reliving my own childhood, the way the world looked and felt back then.
The last third of the book was especially compelling, as the young narrator enters the hospital to have his blood changed (which will hopefully cure the awful rash that's plagued him). He meets other children like himself in the hospital, as well as one of my favorite characters of all time, Mr. Topping, who's there being treated for his own skin problems.
Most of the time, we don't find out about books like this because they're not blockbusters by well-known authors. But Snow Train is a book that deserves a wide audience, and I hope it gets just that.