Whiteout

by: Brian Duren

Published by: Beaver's Pond Press

Reviewed by Kathy Perschmann

Writer Paul Bauer lives in Paris with the beautiful Claire. He ignores his older sister’s phone messages telling him that his mother is dying back in Minnesota. He has had no contact with his family for over 14 years. Once his mother is dead, he returns to the remote log cabin resort lodge his family runs in the wilderness of Minnesota in time for the funeral, in an attempt to end his increasingly strange nightmares. He always felt unloved–not a part of the family.

At the lodge he is confronted with his crazy brother Francis, and his cranky sister Christine, and his reticent older mentor, “Stone,” who he finds out is an orphaned cousin, raised by his parents. Paul was the baby of the family, and his father disappeared in a blizzard when he was around four years old. He decides not to leave right after the funeral, to stay and ferret out some truths about the past. He researches his father’s disappearance when he discovers that his body was never found. The wrenching dark secrets he uncovers over the winter he is there will change his relationships with his siblings forever.

In an attempt to get to know the mother he always felt so cut off from, he reads evocative letters he discovers that his parents exchanged before they were married. He talks to his mother’s best friend Ruth, and revisits the farm she grew up on, and where he spent many memorable summers working with his kind grandparents. He tries to get Francis and Christine to open up about their father and his disappearance. Will he regret learning the truth?

This chilly and disturbing novel set in the freezing wilds of Minnesota will be hard to forget. Duren has a real talent for describing a rugged and unforgiving wilderness that he loves.

Armchair Interviews says: A mystery more about long-ago and present relationships than anything else.