Black Woods, Blue Sky

by Eowyn Ivey ★★★★☆

Birdie, a young single mother of a six-year-old girl, Emaleen, is scraping by in a remote Alaskan town, trying to balance waiting tables at the local roadhouse while making sure her daughter has enough care. When she leaves early one morning to clear her head after a raucous night at the bar, she returns home to find Emaleen missing from their small cabin. A frantic search ensues, but before long Emaleen is safely returned by Arthur Nielsen, a quiet, part-time resident of the town.

Perhaps because of this act of kindness, or a sense of curiosity, or a lack of options, Birdie develops a fondness for Arthur. He begins coming by the roadhouse daily, sitting alone in a separate room, and Birdie finds herself looking forward to his visits. Arthur is a giant of a man, but this is not the story of a quiet mysterious heartthrob brooding in the corner:

His choppy, golden hair looked like he'd cut it himself with a dull blade, and his beard was full, except where a deep scar ran down the side of his head and cheek. All that remained of his ear on that side was a small flap. Maybe because of his disfigurement, or his awkward behavior and strange way of speaking, people tended to shy away from Arthur. Birdie has always been more curious than anything.

Birdie's curiosity and fondness develops into an unlikely friendship and an even more bizarre romance, one that feels nearly impossible to believe. In a way, it feels derivative of Beauty and the Beast...but only if Beast didn't even remotely try to woo Belle, and if Belle had a kindergartner in tow. Arthur seems to have little interest in Birdie sexually, even when she presses the situation, but he gets along well with Emaleen, and somehow the combination of all of these things leads to a romantic relationship between Birdie and Arthur and an unlikely and awkward love.

Birdie is a tragic figure in many ways. She was abandoned by her own mother, and she feels similarly trapped in the small town—saddled with a daughter she loves, but who she also admits in her most private moments feels like a weight around her neck. "It was impossible what Birdie wanted. To go alone, to experience the world on her own terms. But also, to share it all with Emaleen." And so to try to taste the freedom she yearns for, Birdie decides to take Emaleen to live with Arthur—a deeply odd man she barely knows— in his remote Alaskan cabin.

When they reach the cabin, Arthur's behavior continues to be peculiar, but Birdie seems unfazed by it, even when he takes a nap under a tree while she splits wood for the stove, or outpaces her on hikes (with Emaleen on his shoulders) until the pair are out of Birdie's sight. The women I know would be infuriated by either scenario, but Birdie takes it in stride. "Birdie liked it this way. Nobody watching over her shoulder, criticizing her every move. Nobody waiting for her to screw up."

Emaleen is perhaps the most well-rendered and believable character among the trio. Ivey writes her with the authentic voice of six-year-old, complete with all of the run-on sentences common to a child just discovering the fullness of language, and bolstered by the active imagination of a kid who has grown up in a town populated almost entirely by adults. Emaleen is a world-class self-entertainer, given how often she's had to fend for herself while her mom is working. But even with all of her independence, living in a remote cabin without running water or electricity is going to be a stretch for a six-year-old, and their time in the woods is peppered with highs and lows, broken up only when Arthur's adoptive father, Walter, flies in to resupply them with food and gifts from the townspeople.

Ivey's debut novel, The Snow Child, was finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and there are some light similarities between the novels. Both are set in Alaska (where Ivey hails from), and both contain a mystical element despite being primarily grounded in our world and reality. But where The Snow Child blended the mystical with reality in a way that worked, there are too many WTF moments among the interactions between Birdie and Arthur, especially when the supernatural starts to come into play.

Aside from those bits that didn't quite work, Black Woods, Blue Sky does do a nice job of exploring some fairly meaty themes. At its core, it's a story about introspective characters trying to come to grips with self-determination, responsibility, guilt, and forgiveness, who allow love to find a way to bridge even the deepest divides. The novel is far from perfect, and it gets pretty weird and unlikely at times, but there were enough moments of quality to leave me satisfied by the end.