A review by stevienlcf
The Snow Queen by Michael Cunningham

3.0

Cunningham sets his novel between two moments in history, the re-election of George W. Bush and the historic election of Barack Obama, and focuses on two middle-aged brothers, Barrett and Tyler Meeks, and Tyler’s live-in girlfriend, Beth. Trudging home through Central Park after being dumped (via text) by his latest boyfriend, Barrett sees a strange light in the sky. Since he is “adamantly secular,” Barrett doesn’t know what to make of this otherworldly vision, but he senses that it may have contributed to Beth’s remission from liver cancer. Cunningham abruptly drops this narrative thread never explaining the implications of Barrett’s revelation. Instead, Cunningham presents a series of connected vignettes about these two over-educated and under-employed brothers who are bumping up against their disappointing lives. Tyler is a bartender and “unknown musician” with a secret drug habit who harbors nostalgia for beth’s illness and “the singularity and purpose they conferred.” Barrett’s early promise, including a Yale education, has been squandered because he lacks “the ability to choose, and persist.” Instead, he works in Beth’s high-end used clothing store in Williamsburg where “it’s essentially an ongoing act of folding and re-folding, and re-re-folding, interrupted by the greeting of customers and periodic transactions.” While Tyler questions whether he looked after Barrett too ardently “by being the endlessly understanding big brother, the guy who never questions or criticizes,” Barrett isn’t interested in correcting the mistaken impressions of those who think he is on an aimless search. Nothing much happens during the four years that the novel covers. Beth dies and the brothers “move from a total s^&thole to a semi-s^&thole.” The lack of plot is saved by Cunningham’s exquisite language and resonant observations, particularly of a pre-gentrified Brooklyn neighborhood.