Winter, in its duality, can be a picture postcard field of lovely white, or oppositely, a raging wall of snow, a destroyer. The protagonist of this story is fueled by these conflicting states of nature and she devours them in her writings, she is a mercurial poet. Hers is a mind of contemplative thoughts and quicksilver reactions. Family, friends and professors are all caught up, beautifully, into the whirlwind that is Blaine.
There is an authentic sense of place captured in this work, Wellesley College is laid out wonderfully, here is Lake Waban on the campus, “The trees would sometimes catch the lake’s reflecting light and little diamond beams would wind their way around its branches.” The descriptions in this work are unique and they bring out elements of the inanimate and animate that one wouldn’t normally see. This is strong story, equally matched by a strong heroine who will stay with the reader and remind them that living and writing poetry is impossibly connected and do so forget about plays, poetry is the thing.
Excerpt
When by the frost of the windowpane and all that descends from the sky are dying snowflakes, it is a canto. How they float past the eye to lay down the ground a scream. An imperceptible sound to those not attuned, yet it is heard sitting in the wingchair and looking out. All that is holding gray New England sky and juxtaposing silver-white snowfall is disturbed.
How Blaine sits in the chair in the drawing room of her mother’s home. The exhale of her breath fogs the window. She traces her pale fingers through the condensation in erratic patterns. Her life’s breath streaking down the glass in small droplets. She seeks meaning in this, but it is simply that which is immeasurable. It is a temporal haunting. Here from her psyche it consumes and emanates as one—a vibrating self-mutilation.
Professional Reviews
Amazon.com Review
"When by the frost of the windowpane and all that descends from the sky are dying snowflakes, it is a canto"--or, alternately, a "soulful winter song." Between these musically descriptive lines, which bookend Chris Roberts's Hazy Shade of Winter, lives Blaine. She is a young New England poet, and in telling her story, Roberts deploys an interesting narrative move. Blaine herself is mentally unbalanced--"Maniac-Depressive," according to her analyst--and though the story is told in the third person, its omniscient narrator seems to suffer, if that's the word, from the very lack of balance attributed to Blaine herself. At times, its voice could be called "stream of consciousness," but that well-worn phrase doesn't fully capture the lyrical spirit of this story, in the middle of which Roberts throws readers a bone with a surprisingly plain-spoken flashback that depicts Blaine's rise as a poet of no small accomplishment. In the end, the pervasive cold of winter--the story's second major character--contrasts with the lingering suggestion of warmth evinced by Roberts's language, creating a counterweight to the polar nature of Blaine's own state of mind as she hurtles toward the story's quietly dramatic conclusion. --Jason Kirk
Review
"When Chris Roberts asked me to read his story I did, to be polite. Within a sentence or two, politeness dissolved into pleasure. Continuously mesmerizing, Hazy Shade of Winter lies somewhere between poetry and prose; it is the work of a gifted writer. "
--Julie Salamon, New York Times-bestselling author of Wendy and the Lost Boys.
The Gift That Is Also a Curse
Poised somewhere between prose and poetry, this moving story is beautifully told. The language itself conveys to the reader the reasons for which Blaine, the young poet whose reality we inhabit, is unable to fit in with her peers or get along with her mother. Blaine's gift of perception, which allows her to write poems that people admire, is also her curse. Lacking the filters that most people possess, she sees and feels everything too acutely. In the end, her unique gift makes everyday life impossible.
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