Snow Angels

Stewart O'Nan

Western Pennsylvania, 1974. On a snowy winter afternoon, the winter of his parents' breakup, Arthur Parkinson's high school band practice is interrupted by the sound of gunshots. Too close for deer hunting, it is the sound of the murder of Annie Marchand. Once Arthur's babysitter, and the object of his childhood admiration, Annie is a young woman for whom life didn't turn out quite right, who could find no one to blame, and who could not keep herself, or her loved ones, from harm. With exquisite feeling and perfect pitch, Snow Angels weaves together two haunting stories: Arthur's account of how his family fell apart and everything went wrong the year he turned fifteen, and the shifting-focus story of Annie Marchand and the broken life she cannot seem to reassemble - a story that will draw Arthur into its deepening eddy as it nears an inevitable conclusion.