A haunting debut novel about family and sacrifice, Winter Loon reminds us of how great a burden the past can be, the toll it exacts, and the freedom that comes from letting it go.Abandoned by his father after his mother drowns in a frozen Minnesota lake, fifteen-year-old Wes Ballot is stranded with coldhearted grandparents and holed up in his mother’s old bedroom, surrounded by her remnants and … surrounded by her remnants and memories. As the wait for his father stretches unforgivably into months, a local girl, whose own mother died a brutal death, captures his heart and imagination, giving Wes fresh air to breathe in the suffocating small town.
When buried truths come to light in the spring thaw, wounds are exposed and violence erupts, forcing Wes to embark on a search for his missing father, the truth about his mother, and a future he must claim for himself–a quest that begins back at that frozen lake.
A powerful, page-turning coming-of-age story, Winter Loon captures the resilience of a boy determined to become a worthy man by confronting family demons, clawing his way out of the darkness, and forging a life from the shambles of a broken past.
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Winter Loon is a brutal, beautiful coming-of-age story in which a young man who loses everything must return to the landscape of that loss to discover what it all means. Susan Bernhard is a writer of incredible grace and power who employs weather and the natural world to plumb the icy depths of her characters’ souls for the warmth of hope, healing, and heart.
Ms. Bernhard’s novel is an expertly nuanced work. Characterization shines, with people portrayed as we are – not either wearing a white or black hat. I truly felt the emotions put forth in this fine book.
It’s tempting to read only the books we’re comfortable with, or those that stay within the lanes of familiar genres. Winter Loon is not a comfortable or easy read, in that the plight of teenager Wes Ballot is so harsh. With our current news headlines, you even might wonder why you’d want to dive into a book that seems as chilly and unforgiving as the Minnesota lake that takes the life of Wes’s mother at the start of the novel. But do it! The writing in this novel is poignant, lyrical, cinematic, darkly comic, and unforgettable. This is one of the most unique and rewarding debut novels I’ve read in a long time.
I lost myself in Winter Loon, its rugged heart, its dark secrets, the honesty and vulnerability of its characters. With prose both taut and lush, Susan Bernhard has created the quintessential story of adolescence: raw, tender, and completely spellbinding.
This novel blew me away. The premise is a dark one: a teenaged boy witnesses his mother’s drowning and is then abandoned by his father to his grandparents. Yet the story is about resilience and love and ultimately how a young man is shaped by his tragic past. The descriptions are lush and even though there was much sadness in the story, I wanted to sit with Wes Ballot longer. The writing is absolutely superb, lyrical and gorgeous and I lost myself in the book. An amazing debut novel.
One of my favorite books of 2019.
This is one of the best coming-of-age books I’ve ever read. It had me from page 1 and never let go: memorable characters, a moving storyline, a narrator I grew to love. It’s not often that I put a book up in the pantheon, the desert-island have-tos. But this rocketed right up there.
An emotionally powerful, deeply sad, and realistic coming-of-age story from a new writer. Difficult to read at times (especially if you have suffered your own childhood traumas) but with a protagonist who plants himself into your heart from the very first pages.
Wes is about 12 when the book begins, living with two dysfunctional parents, who are caught in a mutually dependent, love-hate relationship that is amplified by drugs and alcohol, physical abuse, and poverty. Brutal fights, passive aggressive behavior, intense reconciliations, and recurrent separations are all Wes knows of family. Later, after he witnesses a horrible family tragedy, Wes winds up living with his two grandparents, who have their own sad histories and are equally incapable of providing the love and support he needs.
But Wes is stronger than his circumstances might lead you to believe. Despite this shaky foundation and understandable difficulties with trust, Wes begins forming attachments with people outside his family. The daughter of a wealthy, small-town businessman, a few co-workers at his summer farm job, and, most importantly, with a Native American girl and her family. All the while, he is waiting passively for rescue. Eventually, Wes takes control and goes off on a solo quest to get answers and where he finally discovers what true family means.
This is a beautifully written debut novel. Most impressive to me was how successful this female author was at getting so deeply, so skillfully, and so believably inside the mind of this teenage boy — with that strange mixture of childlike hope, raging hormones, and budding adult strength.
From the beginning, I loved Wes, worried about him, and was nervously eager to get to the very satisfying conclusion of the book. I guarantee this one will get under your skin.
Winter Loon is a gorgeous, emotionally wrought, coming-of-age story about a young boy who watches his mother drown and then must endure the aftermath of her death–a father who abandons him, moving in with his abusive grandparents and falling in love with the beautiful Jolene. The novel is heart-wrenching, gritty, and at times troubling, but one thing that you cannot escape is how you will feel about young Wes Ballot as he tries to figure out his new place in the world. This is a brilliant debut and I can’t wait to see where Bernhard will take her readers next.
This is a beauty of a page-turner, dreamy, disquieting, and uncompromising to the end. Against the tide of the wandering heart, the novel tells us, only love can offer us a place to rest—and only if we let it.
Winter Loon is a stunner. In gorgeous, laconic prose, Susan Bernhard has brought to life an unforgettable character in Wes Ballot, whose coming-of-age is marked as much by his own resilience as it is the tragedy of his circumstances. I read this book late into the night. I bet you will, too.
Winter Loon seethes with the energy of an adolescent boy trying to figure out how to become a man. Wes Ballot is sixteen, weighed down by loss and secrets, but also uplifted by the joys of falling in love. All the while, Susan Bernhard’s muscular writing propels the reader through this striking debut.
Wes Ballot is the kind of character I read books hoping to find — imperfect and lovable, haunted yet determined to forge ahead. From the moment I slid out onto the ice with him, Winter Loon had me in its grip. A gorgeous novel from a masterful new voice.
A fine coming-of-age story for all ages.
A teenage boy is unable to save his mother from drowning in a frozen lake. His passage into adulthood is peopled with rejection and disappointments. A story of growth and survival.
Wes Ballot’s mom is dead and his dad has abandoned him. Living with his grandparents is difficult and exhausting. The one bright spot is his girlfriend, who herself had lost her mother. When Wes heads out to look for his father her learns things about his father that he never knew and things about his mother that he wishes he never found out.
Winter Loon is a well written book with great characters. The reader is able to feel the emotions that Wes feels and the pain that his mother endured. For me the story was slow, but informative. I never got the feeling that I was missing something. The book wraps up well with no loose ends, but it felt like the author rushed the ending to get it all in. Overall Winter Loon is a great coming of age story.
Although there were some slow spots in this book, I loved the character development and the author’s descriptions were so good you felt like you could watch things happening. The book is written in first person with the narrator being a young man with a very disfunctional family. He has a very traumatic experience in the first few pages of the book when his mother dies in front of him. He has constantly been yanked from home to home, never being allowed to form lasting friendships. He finally makes friends with some Native Americans who are also socially shunned, but learns from them what a real family is all about and finds some role models that help turn him into an upstanding person.
A very sad and tragic story. Well written, but not one I would recommend. Just too heart breaking. Lists as a YA and I certainly wouldn’t want my teen reading this. Bad language, sex, terrible tragedies. 3.5 rating
I loved this book. I was very invested in the main character and really rooted for him. It was a coming of age story against all odds. It makes you wonder how you would react after being put in the same situation.
This simple novel about a boy searching for his long-absent father is one of the !most beautifully woven stories I have read in years. There seems to be a movement in literary fiction to take the ordinary and raise it to the sublime. In this movement, this novel is one of the best. I loved it so much after reading it on my kindle that I bought a hard copy for my daughter. Highly, highly recommended!