THE SNOW QUEEN By Michael Cunningham

Readers of Cunningham’s previous novel By Nightfall will find themselves in similar territory with his latest – the setting is again New York (now Bushwick, Brooklyn); two of the main characters are again siblings; and again a main character is in thrall to a drug addiction. Yet the novel opens beautifully – Barrett Meeks is walking through Central Park, trying to make sense of why his latest lover has abandoned him so abruptly, when he spies what seems to be a god-light observing him in the heavens above. This unusual vision haunts Barrett and in the weeks that follow he tries to make sense of it. When his brother’s girlfriend Beth suddenly experiences an unexpected remission from her cancer, Barrett begins to wonder – is his experience somehow connected to the miracle of Beth’s recovery?