Tide, Feather, Snow-Miranda Weiss

Tide, Feather, Snow
Miranda Weiss
Harper, Apr 28 2009, $24.99
ISBN: 0061710253

This is an engaging memoir of Miranda Weiss’s first year living in Alaska after residing in Oregon where she taught straight fifth-grade science. She describes vividly the adjustment she and her boyfriend John made when they accepted teaching positions in the small village Homer. They travel all over the area leaning its history with landmarks. However, the deepest most interesting part of this excellent year in the life of is the profound look at how the Old Believers live while the pair struggles to become more like the locals; self sufficient. For instance they catch salmon in the Kenai River to freeze for the long winter, etc. However, the long periods with just one another led to deep musing by the pair and the end of their relationship; though that segue is the weakest piece due to being overly dramatic. This a terrific insightful look at the cost to a “Forty Eighter” trying to become Alaska-acclimatized in the final American frontier.

Harriet Klausner