Gregory Galloway, As Simple As Snow

As Simple As Snow

Gregory Galloway

Putnam, Mar 2005, $23.95

ISBN: 0399152318

Brooding Goth Anna "Anastasia" Cayne recently moved to the small town where she attends Hamilton High School as a sophomore. She dresses in black, joining up with six other Manson clones as a clique. Anastasia loves to read, loving those who craft wild ghost stories and enjoys tossing riddles at people. Her hobby is writing obits for the living with her current goal to complete one for all fifteen hundred plus residents in less than a year.

At the library, she accosts a student over his reading material; they begin dating. However, upon completing the town obits, Anastasia vanishes. Her stunned boyfriend, encouraged by odd anonymous notes with enigmatic puzzles and codes, begins looking back over the five months she was in town and realizes weird things besides his own darkened transformation had occurred. While the obituaries were being written, no one died and the author, though new in town, knew more about the souls than those who lived here their entire life. He wonders if his family or friends caused Anastasia's disappearing act or did she pull a Houdini and vanish.

AS SIMPLE AS SNOW grips the readers once Anastasia challenges the narrator over his choice of Kerouac instead of Burroughs and never lets up until the final metamorphosis, but fails to bring together the enigma that makes up the fascinating anti-heroine. The storyline grips the audience on two levels; the need to know what really happened to the gloomy Anastasia and as an insightful look at alienated youth. Gregory Galloway provides a deep look at disenchanted teens, but in the end leaves too much unanswered, especially the spooky elements that haunt the left behind boyfriend.

Harriet Klausner