‘The Snow Queen,’ by Michael Cunningham, reviewed in The New York Times

May 13, 2014

The Snow Queen, the new novel by Michael Cunningham, was reviewed in The New York Times

 
“… the novel is Cunningham in his sweet spot, compassionate, emotionally exhilarating, devilishly fun. He gives us a stirring and wistful picture of early-21st-century New York, with its fast-shifting neighborhood dynamics and the strange, toxic social proximity of the carelessly wealthy and the just-getting-by. He forces us to interrogate the notions we hold about greatness and success. And as he gradually reveals the often surprising ways that each of the novel’s central characters — Tyler, Barrett, Beth and Liz — is connected to the others, he offers up darkly alluring alternatives to shopworn views of love, sex and death.
 

Many things happen in this book, yet its prose is unhurried and sensuous. “The Snow Queen” takes hold of you in a manner that feels almost primal, the way a fragrance wafts into a room and changes your mood, before you even realize it.”