THE COLOR OF ICE

Probst’s novel follows a career photographer as she revives her artistic and romantic passions in Iceland.

Cathryn McAllister, an American single mother of two grown children, has long sacrificed her art for the security of commercial photography and catered to her kids’ every whim. In dire need of a break, she seizes upon the opportunity to shoot a spread of photographs in the stunning Icelandic landscape, both as a crown jewel to her portfolio and as a chance to take some time for herself. She doesn’t expect to fall in love with the subject of her photos, the alluring glass blower Henry Malcolm “Mack” Charbonneau, but she soon finds herself abandoning her preplanned itinerary for the cramped, steamy quarters of a glass blowing hot shop in Akureyri. The heat of their mutual desire is tempered by Mack’s strange reticence to let Cathryn know him. She offers as little of her past as he does his, and the two exist in a liminal space of artistic exploration and intimate passion, untethered by the ties that bind them to their daily lives. Yet readers will feel the weight of Cathryn’s life pressing in, as each of her children calls in turn to complain of minute yet personally monumental crises. As her relationship with Mack unfolds, Cathryn realizes her own agency, suppressed for so long along with the traumas of her late husband’s infidelity and untimely death. Probst grapples with questions of the essence of art and the possibility of redemption in this novel and conveys some gorgeous and potent images along the way. However, some passages suffer from overwriting. For example, Mack’s stirring observation on glass blowing (“After all, what other art form requires the breath of its creator?”) is undercut by Cathryn’s gratuitous response (“That’s an extraordinary way to put it”). Metaphors and symbols are also laid bare and dissected. The author has a keen skill at crafting nuanced and textured relationships, but she brings less grace to the construction of the plot. Still, she delivers an often engaging narrative with an ending you won’t expect.

A sensitive and sensual story of renewal that’s hampered somewhat by overexplanation.