Charlottesville author brings introspective novel for reading/signing event: The Algebra of Snow–A Bedtime Story for My Mother, by Ginger Moran, Saturday, Dec. 22, 2-4 p.m., Bookworks, 101 W. Beverley St., Staunton.
The Algebra of Snow is a novel that subtracts most of the allures of a novel—lush setting, multiple characters, and complex plot. What it does have is one woman, a mathematician, alone in a cabin in the Adirondacks in winter.
Writer Jim Robison referred to it as “an autopsy by the cadaver herself” … and acclaimed author Don Barthelme read the short story from which it is derived and called it “accomplished” and “moving.” A professor of mathematics, Amelia Grant, has spent the summer in the Adirondacks … and at the beginning of the novel she surprises a friend with the news that she plans to stay up there for a while.
The retreat into fall and then winter is part of a longer withdrawal Amelia has undergone ever since the death of her mother when Amelia was a child. Amelia goes deeper into the winter, cutting herself of from the outside world, and begins to write letters to her dead mother. Robison also said the cadaver is reborn, and the urgency of that rebirth is felt throughout. Casey Fuetsch at Doubleday, who nominated it for a Pushcart Editor’s Book award, saw the main character as having “an interior life that is no less rich than that found in the best women’s literature.”
About the Author: A teacher, published writer and single mom of two boys, Ginger Moran’s areas of expertise are in fiction and creative nonfiction, editing, coaching, and creative survival. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Houston in Literature and Creative Writing, and Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in English from the University of Virginia. She studied with Donald Barthelme, Phillip Lopate, Rosellen Brown, Jim and Mary Robison, John Casey, and Ann Beattie. She has published in Salon.com, Oxford American, Literary Mama, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Feminist Studies and other journals. THE ALGEBRA OF SNOW was nominated for a Pushcart Editor’s Choice Award. She has written three novels, a collection of essays about her years as a single working mom, and a nonfiction book on custody. She taught at Spring Hill College and Fisk University and currently edits the University of Virginia Women’s Center magazine, Iris, and serves as the associate director.
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