Black as Snow by Nick Nolan
In comparison to the previous two novels by Nick Nolan I have read, especially Strings Attached, where I had immediately caught the connection with the fairy tale they were loosely inspired by, with Black as Snow I had some more double check to do, and in a way I’m still missing some “characters”. Sure, Sebastian Black is SnowWhite (Black/White), his mother Kitty is the stepmother/witch, and I think I even matched two dwarfs in Tess and Libby (Grumpy and Doc), even if I didn’t arrive to 7. Ramon is probably another one, and Reed is the female version of the Prince Charming. And yes, I didn’t commit a mistake since even if there is a gay subtheme, this is not actually a full gay novel, it’s more a novel about modern society, and there is everyone, gays, lesbians and straights.
There is a lot of gay references throughout the novel, Tess and Libby B&B in Big Sur has each room devoted to a LGBT classic author, like Paul Monette, and the lesbian couple is reading a copy of Double Bond by the same Nick Nolan. One of the supporting character helping Sebastian find his way back to life (another reference, also SnowWhite was running away from her world but then she went back), Ramon, has a gay son who he deeply loves, unconditionally, like probably Nick Nolan would like happen to each young gay boy on his coming out.
But in the end the main element of the novel is the searching of a new religion than in the end is simply the acknowledgment we are not alone in the world, that you are not an isle and that you cannot live by yourself without considering what your actions, or even simply words, will do to whom is around you. As I have always found SnowWhite to be a bit too much naïve, so is Sebastian; he is not against his mother ideas, maybe he doesn’t like how she is realizing them, but more or less he believes what she is telling him. Sebastian is living in a crystal ball, detached by real life, programmed to believe he is so much better than other people he can do practically everything.
But Sebastian will learn a taught lesson: no matter how much you try, no matter how much you believe it, at some point you have nothing to do if not surrender to life, and the only think that remains to do is to love even more who is still there with you.
Amazon: Black as Snow
Amazon Kindle: Black as Snow
Paperback: 392 pages
Publisher: AmazonEncore (August 30, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1612180051
ISBN-13: 978-1612180052
Reading List: http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bottom.php?tag=reading list&view=elisa.rolle