What’s in the Pot? Reviewing Waubgeshig Rice’s Moon of the Crusted Snow

For fans of...

The Road, The Stand, The Auctioneer

Moon of the Crusted Snow is a 2018 novel by Waubgeshig Rice. Evan, his wife Nicole, and their children live in a remote community in North Ontario. Evan and Nicole have been trying to reclaim their Anishinaabe identity, lost over years of assimilation, when their connection to the outside world becomes cut off, just as winter comes. People arrive in the community from the south, and tell of how the power is out everywhere, and that the world seems to be devolving into chaos. A rogue faction develops under the leadership of outsider Justin Scott. Who will win control of the community? 

The first ¾ of the novel feels like a typical literary survival story. It’s a super slow burn, but Rice does a fantastic job building the tension from page 1. You know things are going to go bad, you know they’re going to get worse, and when the tension is cut, the Horror factor is truly terrifying, mostly because of how realistic the Horror elements feel. 

On top of the suspense/thriller/horror aspects (or perhaps beneath them) is a strong emotional core; a nuanced discussion of intergenerational trauma and reclaiming identity. I’ve always believed that the best Horror books are the ones that you can remove all the Horror from, and still have an amazing story, and Moon of the Crusted Snow might be one of the best examples of this to date. If you got ride of the apocalyptic elements and the other horrific scenes that I won’t spoil for you, you’d have a story of loss, hope, trauma, and reclamation of identity.

This book is sure to become a classic of the Canadian Gothic. It's moody, it's violent, and so much of the story is so specific to the lands where it takes place. This book might knock off McCarthy's The Road as my favourite post-apocalyptic book! But before you dive in, you might want to put on a warm cardigan, because the descriptions of harsh winter will chill you straight to the bone!

Rating: 5 Mysterious Pots on a Fire Out of 5

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Reviewer details – 

Ian A. Bain

Twitter: @bainwrites 

Website: ianabain.wordpress.com

I purchased this book