Boy, Snow, Bird

Description

Boy Novak turns 20 and decides to try for a brand-new life. Flax Hill, Massachusetts, isn't exactly a welcoming town, but it does have the virtue of being the last stop on the bus route she took from New York. Flax Hill is also the hometown of Arturo Whitman - craftsman, widower and father of Snow. Snow is mild-mannered, radiant and deeply cherished - exactly the sort of little girl Boy never was, and Boy is utterly beguiled by her. If Snow displays a certain inscrutability at times, that's simply a characteristic she shares with her father, harmless until Boy gives birth to Snow's sister, Bird. When Bird is born, Boy is forced to re-evaluate the image Arturo's family have presented to her and Boy, Snow and Bird are broken apart.

Helen Oyeyemi is the author of The Icarus Girl, The Opposite House, White is for Witching (which won a 2010 Somerset Maugham Award), and Mr Fox. In 2013, Helen was included in Granta's Best of Young British Novelists. Boy, Snow, Bird is Helen's fifth novel.

A spellbinding, wholly original look at families and the secrets they keep . . . An absolutely amazing and absorbing read * Marie Claire * Gloriously unsettling . . . it's clearly the book she's been waiting for . . . the greatest joy of reading Oyeyemi will always be style: jagged and capricious at moments, lush and rippled at others, always singular, like the voice-over of a fever dream. * New York Times * Boy, Snow, Bird is a haunting, tender portrait of three women from one of our generation's most talented literary writers * Stylist * Boy, Snow, Bird is among my favorite new releases for this year already. A retelling of the Snow White fairy-tale that focuses on race, it's a sensitive, intelligent treatment of a subject most fiction still sidesteps. Fans of Adichie's Americanah who also like a little fantasy in their coffee will be enchanted, I think. * Flavorwire * You don't want to leave Boy, Snow, Bird . . . a joy; the kind of fiction where you can wallow in the language and thrill at her inventiveness. * Emerald Street * One of my favourite books this year is Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi. It is a modern version of the Snow White fairy tale and challenges the origins of meaning. -- Jenni Fagan * The Herald * Vibrant, funny and poignant * Big Issue * Striking, shimmering fiction . . . Boy, Snow, Bird is an intoxicatingly immersive riff on the myth of the evil stepmother * Metro * Oyeyemi writes beautiful prose, can adopt a sassy American idiom with assurance and produces sentences that no one else would think of . . . Boy's is a unique narrative voice * The Times * An extraordinary modern fairy tale, with huge international buzz * Red magazine * A powerful intertwining of fairytale and reality . . . Boy, Snow and Bird are brilliant creation, and through these three appealing and mysterious characters Oyeyemi examines female identity in all its delightful and terrifying complexity . . . Oyeyemi is a master of language; her writing is beautiful and precise, and her ability to hide deep meaning in unassuming words is breathtaking. This is a bewitching book, in every way. * The List * Oyeyemi is the cleverest in the land * Washington Post * 'Riveting, brilliant and emotionally rich . . . Dense with fully realized characters, startling images, original observations and revelatory truths, this masterpiece engages the reader's heart and mind as it captures both the complexities of racial and gender identity in the 20th century and the more intimate complexities of love in all its guises. * Kirkus * Helen Oyeyemi consolidates her position as one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists 2013 with the publication of her fifth novel, a story about the perception and power of appearances and race, and their potential destructiveness . . . An enchanting and captivating book. * Independent *