Evening Snow Will Bring Such Peace

By David Adams Richards

Cindi and Ivan Basterache have been married only twenty months. There is a disagreement over a loan, and rumours of violence in the ensuing quarrel begin to spread throughout the northern New Brunswick mill town in which they live, setting in motion a series of events and misunderstandings. As Ivan struggles to reconcile with Cindi, the community turns against him, fuelled by his father’s self-deluded lies and misguided attempts to set things right, exposing the other side of good intentions and leading to the novel’s powerful conclusion. Disturbing, tender-hearted, and at times darkly humorous, Evening Snow Will Bring Such Peace reveals the strange unrecognized power in us all to shape one another’s destinies.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Sep 1, 2009
• ISBN: 9781551993119

David Adams Richards

David Adams Richards is a resident of Fredericton and is one of only three Canadian writers who have won Governor General's Awards for Fiction and Non-Fiction. His novel Mercy Among the Children won the 2000 Giller Prize, while his most recent novel, Incidents in the Life of Marcus Paul, won the 2012 Thomas H. Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award.

Reviews for Evening Snow Will Bring Such Peace

[cecilturtle · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A very dark maritime tale with a dash of hope

[bcteagirl_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Evening Snow will Bring Such Peace is set in a small town in Cape Breton, this time in the late 1970's. Ivan and Cindy have only been married a short time when they have a fight that attracted a lot of attention. The book then circles around them, their family and their friends. Small town politics prevail as rumours fly.. right or wrong they then colour how their behaviour is interpreted from that point on. A theme I see in this book is the central importance the characters place on how others see them. Some paint themselves as victims and everyone around them as villains in an attempt too impress others. Some attempt to look heroic and helpful, even at the cost of the people they are 'helping'... just so long as it gets them attention and makes them look good. They often selectively help people based more on prejudice (against the person they are helping, and the ones they are 'saving' them from) than an actual urge to help.This book was slow to start (for me) but I am glad I read it. A quote I really like is " 'There's a lot of ways people hide bigotry from themselves,' the doctor mumbled 'one of them is progressive concern.'"