A Long Winter

Author: Colm Toibin
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 2007
Pages: 135
Rating: Recommend

Synopsis: A young man named Miguel returns to his family in the Catalan Pyrenees upon completing his military service. His younger brother, Jordi, will be departing for his service a week after Miguel's arrival. he will be gone for two years. Miguel notices their mother's increasingly erratic behavior and understands that she is drinking.

As she becomes increasingly unstable, her husband resorts to drastic measures. Unable to abide his betrayal and her own grief, she walks of into the mountains. A blizzard sets in and the search for her is future. No one will find her until the spring thaw arrives.

Review: I am really struggling getting into novels. I'm back in the office four days a week and my daughter is graduating. I feel very busy and unfocused outside of working hours. I chose this book randomly while searching the stacks for skinny books.

Surprisingly, I fell into this book on the first page and read all 135 pages in one sitting. There were some loose ends left untied, but all-in-all, a very good story.