The main characters and the locale of Snow Road Station (available in April, 2023) will be familiar to readers of my previous novel His Whole Life. Lulu Blake, in her sixties now, has the starring role in Samuel Beckett’s “Happy Days.” An ambition come true, until she blanks on her lines. Ashamed and panicked, she escapes to Snow Road Station and her old friend Nan.
Several things drew me to this story: affection for Lulu, a still-sexy, seldom-fooled single woman. Lifelong fascination with actors and acting. And my experience over the years that getting what you want is no less complicated than not getting it.
I’ve been in love with the name “Snow Road Station” for decades. It’s a real village in eastern Ontario, not far from where we have our family cabin. The name is evocative, even poetic, with its three-part movement from snow to road to station—an arrival, a departure, a long wait—a place of rest, a stoppage, yet a road. That movement is mirrored in the novel, for not only did the name give me the book’s title, it gave me its three-part structure.
Although Snow Road Station flows from His Whole Life, each novel stands alone.