Silent Snow, Secret Snow

by Adèle Geras

An atmospheric tale of family secrets, betrayals and desire from an acclaimed storyteller. The Golden family has congregated for Christmas in their large, old family home. Laurie has invited his friend Carlo. He hopes for a chance to tell him his deepest feelings, but Carlo wants to spend time with Laurie`s sister, the beautiful yet aloof Marianne. Meanwhile, their cousin, Ellie, is struggling to cope with her miserable mother and the fact that her father is absent. Outside the house the air is soft with snow; inside it crackles with tension as another family tradition becomes evident - that of keeping secrets. Some are tragic, some selfish and some embarrassing. Cut off from the outside world, will anything in the family ever be the same again?

Genres: Young Adult, Christmas, Fiction, Childrens

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Adèle Geras FRSL (born 15 March 1944) is an English writer for young children, teens and adults. Her husband was the Marxist academic Norman Geras and their daughter Sophie Hannah is also a novelist and poet.

Geras was born in Jerusalem, British Mandatory Palestine. Her father was in the Colonial Service and she had a varied childhood, living in countries such as Nigeria, Cyprus, Tanzania, Gambia and British North Borneo in a short span of time. She attended Roedean School in Brighton and then graduated from St Hilda's College, Oxford with a degree in Modern Languages. She was known for her stage and vocal talents, but decided instead to become a full-time writer.

Geras's first book was Tea at Mrs Manderby's, which was published in 1976. Her first full-length novel was The Girls in the Velvet Frame. She has written more than 95 books for children, young adults, and adults. Her best-known books are Troy (shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize and Highly Commended for the Carnegie Medal) Ithaka, Happy Ever After (previously published as the Egerton Hall Trilogy), Silent Snow, Secret Snow, and A Thousand Yards of Sea.

Her novels for adults include: Facing the Light, Hester's Story, Made in Heaven, and A Hidden Life.

Geras won two prizes in the United States, one the Sydney Taylor Book Award for the My Grandmother's Stories and the National Jewish Book Award for Golden Windows. She has also won prizes for her poetry and was a joint winner of the Smith Doorstop Poetry Pamphlet Award, offered by the publisher of that name.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Cheyenne Blue · Rating 3 out of 5]

A country op shop find that I bought purely on the title (it's a gorgeous title!) and because it was only 30c. It turned out to be a young adult story about an extended family gathering for xmas in the sprawling family home. Told in multiple viewpoints (including Pamina the cat), it explores secrets and love and attraction and the reactions of many of that same group of people when the secrets are revealed or exposed.

Laurie is in love with his friend Carlos, who is attracted to Laurie's sister Marianne, who is in love with Andy who isn't there. There's an abortion mentioned (and reactions to same), and the exposure of other things previously unknown.

While I enjoyed this book, it had a curiously flat feeling. The reactions to revelations were anticlimatic ("Oh, I knew Laurie was gay") to disinterested ("... but the one thing she hadn't predicted was the almost universal lack of interest..."), to maelstroms of weeping and anger, but overall, I got the feeling the characters would simply shrug and move on past with little effect. That's certainly true for a lot of life, but for this book it left me thinking that nothing much had changed for any of the characters from the start to the end. They had all gained knew knowledge that could change their lives, but at the end, they move right along, unchanged by it all.

It was a pleasant read, but like the characters, I'll shrug and move right along.

[Samiha · Rating 1 out of 5]

I didn't really like it. It was boring, I hoped it would get better so I persevered until the end but it didn't really get better.

[Joanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Originally posted on Once Upon a Bookcase.

I actually discovered this book by chance. Non Pratt of Catnip Publishing blogged about Gay Writes. Adèle Geras commented on the post about her novel silent snow, secret snow, and so I thought I would give it a go.

Originally published in 1998 (when I was 11!), silent snow, secret snow follows a family Christmas over five days. Eleven people and a cat, each with their own secrets. While there, they get snowed in, and the secrets become difficult to keep when they're unable to escape each other - even in such a big house.

Despite the varying ages of the characters in this book - Maestro, the eldest, being really quite elderly, and Ellie, the youngest, being only 13 - when reading, it's clear that this book is for the younger end of YA. A number of serious issues are discussed in this book, and they are discussed quite simply. I wouldn't say they were dumbed down; to me it feels like the book is aimed at those aged 11-13, and I think it discusses the issues brilliantly as an introduction to mature themes.

At 150 pages, this is quite a short book. Despite that, quite a lot goes on. The story is told in third person from all twelve characters' - yes, including the cat, Pamina - points of view. This may sound like it gets chaotic, but it isn't. One person's point of view could be half a page or up to about three pages, and more often that not, the start of each new narration is made apparent by the the time of day and which room in the house the character is in, and when not, paragraph breaks are used, so it's easy to follow.

As I said, there are quite a lot of various serious issues discussed in this book, but to talk about them would be to reveal the secrets and spoil the story. However, as Laurie's sexuality is revealed not only in the blurb, but from the very beginning of the book, it's fine to talk about. Laurie's sexuality is discussed just as simply as the other mature themes in the book.

Laurie is in love with Carlo, but nobody knows. Or rather, he's never told anyone that he's gay, let alone that he is in love with his best friend. The whole reason he invited Carlo to spend Christmas with his family is so that he can spend some time alone with him, away from school, and to try and pluck up the courage to tell him. That's a little difficult when family is absolutely everywhere, when Carlo seems to have a thing for his sister Marianne, and when his younger cousin Ellie seems have a crush on him too. One or the other, if not both, are always around. Apart from Laurie worrying a few times what his parents might think if he came out, this is pretty much the extent of Laurie's story.

What's great is that when certain people discover his sexuality, they don't really bat an eyelid. Marianne has suspected for quite a while that Laurie is gay, and she only feels more sure about her suspicions at Christmas when she sees the way he looks at Carlo. She remembers a conversation she had with her best friend Stacey the previous year (Stacey is the first to speak):

'"...Why don't you ask him?"
"What, just flat out, like that: are you gay?"
"Yes. Why not?"
"He might not want anyone to know," Marianne said.
"That's ridiculous," said Stacey. "There's nothing wrong with being gay."
"Well, I know that, and you know that," Marianne said, "but Laurie might feel embarrassed about it. Boys are a bit strange about stuff like that. He might not want to talk about it."' (p74)

And later, from Ellie's point of view, when Marianne divulges Laurie's secret to Ellie:

'Marianne thought Laurie was gay. Ellie had never met any gay people, so she didn't know what she thought about them, although of course if what Marianne said was true, then she did... she knew Laurie very well, and he was her favourite person in the world, after her parents and Marianne. It didn't matter a bit, she decided. Who cares if you like men better than women or the other way round? She certainly didn't.
"Is Carlo gay too?" she asked Marianne
"I don't think so," Marianne said. "Not judging by the way he's been coming on to me."
"Has he?"
"Oh, yes. Though he could be bi, of course."
...[Ellie] had vaguely heard of bisexuals - people who liked both men and women - but she didn't really understand how that worked and she was too embarrassed to ask Marianne, who would think she was a real baby.' (p80-81)

Both excerpts show not only the extent of which the discussion about Laurie's sexuality goes, but also an idea of how simply the story is written. I think silent snow, secret snow is a great way of slowing easing younger readers into LGBTQ fiction, as a way of bringing the subject up for a discussion with parents, without getting too heavy serious.

However, silent snow, secret snow is just a little too young for me. Thankfully it was a very quick read, otherwise I believe I would have gotten too frustrated. It was just too young for me to enjoy, and found the way the characters spoke quite annoying, almost as if they were very upper class, and I found it a little jarring. Not for me, but I do think it would be a great story for it's age-range. Unfortunately, silent snow, secret snow is now out of print, so if you wish to buy yourself a copy, you may have to buy a secondhand copy.

[Renee · Rating 1 out of 5]

Brutally honest: this book was a complete waste of time and was so frustrating to read. It's the epitome of a poorly written book. Overall annoyingly pretentious, tries to be deep but fails miserably. Language is inconsistent, overly simple and dramatic, sometimes cliche. Plot is uninteresting and so boring. Pacing is terribly executed. Tried to give characters deep backstories but somehow they are still flat and disconnected

[Lizy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very short book. I wasn't sure whether to take it because it didn't look that different from other books. I decided to get the book in the end because Philip Pullman seemed to have liked it. I am very glad I did. I think what made me like the book so much were the characters; they felt very real compared to many other characters I've come across in other books. I loved reading about how the characters reacted to each other and the secrets floating about. At the end of the book I felt that, even though a lot had happened in those few days,and even though the amount of secrets under that roof was almost unbelievable, as a reader, I got a glimpse of a story that really did happen. That said, I hate the title of the book. Yes, there is snow in the book; but the book is more about secrets and Christmas, and family, and friendship, and relationships. Oh well, what do I know? I've never written a novel.




SPOILER ALERT:

The build up and happening of Pamina's death was perfect and almost heartbreaking :/

[Bettie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Book description - Product Description
The story of a family Christmas. Relatives and friends of the Golden family are in a hotel run by Irena, the grandmother and very much the matriarch. A heavy snowfall maroons the family and the enforced stay brings all kinds of hidden secrets to the surface.