SUGARING OFF

As she did with Grit (2017), French embeds a mystery within a coming-of-age tale set against an unromanticized agricultural New England backdrop.

Owl, a 17-year-old White girl, lives on New Hampshire’s remote Waits Mountain, where she helps her uncle tend the family maple-sugar operation. At her tiny K-12 school she endures twice-a-week sessions with Ms. Z, the district’s teacher for the Deaf. Owl’s been partially deaf since she was 7, when her brute of a father hurled her down the stairs—an act that sent him to prison—but she’s more adept at reading lips than signing. Just as the sap begins to run in February, two intrusions threaten Owl’s hard-won serenity: the arrivals of a letter from her father announcing his release and Cody, a neighbor’s troubled, estranged grandson, who’ll help with the sugaring. As ever, French weaves her storylines deftly. Owl finds herself attracted to Cody, whose difficult childhood in the foster system could have been hers but for her aunt and uncle; she also begins to warm to both Ms. Z and even possibly the idea of finding a Deaf community. Owl’s Passamaquoddy aunt’s conflicted relationship with her family of origin and distance from her tribe offers measured counterpoint. By the time a thriller plot kicks in, readers will be thoroughly embedded. Most characters present White; a neighboring Houlton Maliseet family provides thoughtful representation of an Indigenous experience different from Owl’s aunt’s.

Bracing as a late-winter morning.