THE THING IN THE SNOW

Snowy, nearly uninhabitable living conditions drive a team of caretakers stationed in a deserted research facility to the brink of madness.

The Northern Institute rests in a remote expanse of snow that purportedly never melts and is hazardous to one’s health. When an unnamed incident causes the facility to lose its research funding and shut down, the sole remaining researcher—a shrewd, cold man named Gilroy—hires a crew of three to maintain the facility since he deems it “cheaper to hire a small team to look after things than to make the anticipated repairs were the building simply left vacant until research could resume.” With Hart, the team’s supervisor, as our narrator, we experience time passing in this strange, lonely facility, days filled with the completion of laughably mundane tasks: testing doors for noises or chairs for their stability. Tension rises between Hart and the other caretakers when the three spot an unidentifiable object out the window lying in the snow. Cline, a painter with an eye for light, and Gibbs, who is skilled in the powers of description, are beguiled by the object, growing more and more fixated on its nature, while Hart—who prides himself on his leadership ability and powers of efficiency—perceives the distraction as a threat to his faltering authority. Time, though, begins to distort for all three, days blurring together, day and night becoming indistinguishable. And after tireless observation, Cline and Hart agree with certainty that the object is changing color, that it is moving. Is the object responsible for the slipperiness of time and the sense that gravity itself has destabilized? The novel gains momentum and intrigue as new mysteries arise and discord between Hart and the others rises to a head. Dry and sometimes-unsettling workplace humor adds delight and levity to a novel whose themes explore the drudgery of the modern workplace and the depths to which the mind in isolation can tumble.

A fine, intriguing hybrid of satire and thriller.