Christopher Rices
The Snow Garden (2003)
Author: Christopher Rice
Genre: Suspense
Plot Summary:
Lambda Award winning novel for best gay male mystery this book may qualify more as atmospheric suspense. This novel opens with the painful death drowning death of Pamela Milford in 1983 while an unknown man watches. Then we meet a bevy of characters who are all affiliated with Atherton College, a fictional college in the Northeastern United States during the . Somehow all of them are also connect to the painting "Garden of Earthly Delights" by Hieronymus Bosch. The painting just happens to be the subject of a controversial novel by Eric Eberman, a professor and alumni at Atherton, who was dating our the unfortunate Pamela Milford and married to Lisa Eberman, the second causality of Snow Garden. Eric is still in the closet, but allowing himself an affair with Randall, the promiscuous mysterious freshman hero of the story. Much of the story focuses around Randall and Kathryn, two freshmen who bond immediately over pasts they don't want to share, not even with each other. There is no specific detective in this story, and though both deaths are murders. SPOILER: The same person didn’t commit both crimes. Lisa’s death is primarily there to shed light on Eric’s past. There are a lot of conventions of mystery and suspense in this novel that will reveal the killer(s) to the reader long before the climactic final confrontation ever beings.
Geographical Setting: Fictional Atherton College an hour outside of Boston
Time Period: Fall/Winter 2003
Appeal Characteristics:
The son of Anne and Stan Rice, Christopher Rice follows in his mom's complex footsteps weaving a cold gothic/contemporary atmosphere around an intricate tale about friendship,heartbreak, betrayal, sexual abuse, long dead drama, homoeroticism, art and the potential that earth is the actual literal hell. The real mystery behind this story isn't as much the whodunnit but more the why and wherefores of every single character in the book. The wintery atmosphere sets the scene for a chilly tale that is only warmed by the deep friendship of Kathryn and Randall and a few touching scenes between various lovers. The fast pace of the action sequences is broken up by the intricate characterizations and the philosophy and history of "The Garden of Earthly Delights." Luckily the academia behind the painting is broken down into threads that parallel the story making it easy to understand. The suspense builds slowly through most of the book as the puzzle is set up and the pieces click into place one by one, character by character. Then as the last piece clicks into place with dizzying speed we return once again to the foundation of the book, Kathryn and Randall's friendship. The real mystery and draw of the book however are the characters as their pasts. Chapter by chapter the reader is treated to a character striptease where in the end all the veils surrounding them are dropped and in the end we have complete and complex personalities and backgrounds. The "Garden of Earthly Delights" tie-in which is supposed to pull all the character threads and action together does end up being extremely heavy handed and repetitive.
Read-alikes: Try Christopher Rice's A Density of Souls. This earlier novel shares the gothic college campus atmosphere (this time set in New Orleans), friendship, and homoerotic/GLBT aspects as well as the plot complexity and characterizations. The The Rule of Four by Ian Caldwell was favorably compared to Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, but the friendships of the characters along with the historical mystery clues tie in would also make this book suitably similar to The Snow Garden. Valerie Martin's Italian Fever is a contemporary gothic suspense intertwined with art and secrets and suspicious deaths and complicated relationships makes this a book to check out. Bart Yates The Brothers Bishop is a pyschological tale about father-son abuse, gay men, sexuality is a complex character study about two men raised together who turned out completely different. The characters here are revealed in the same striptease-like manner as The Snow Garden and the guilt and abuse themes are similar. Cray Donnelly/Karl Dailey's Laudanum is another mystery with GLBT characters and themes, a fast pace, plot twists and turns, and deep characterizations.
Red Flags: Sexual Activity and Abuse, Language, Violence
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