Snow, Ashes

The uneasy friendship between Fremont Adams and C.D. Hobbs worked best when both men had a job to do, when they could fall into the rhythm of hard labor. Neglected by his mother at an early age, Hobbs found his way into the Adams family and took his fair share of chores on their Wyoming ranch. But everyone could tell he was always a bit odd, a bit off. As a result, Fremont resigned himself to watching out for Hobbs, who had an innocence and optimism that can only come from ignorance. During a grueling tour of Korea, however, Adams and Hobbs face unspeakable horrors and return to the ranch marked in dangerous ways. Told in four parts—alternating between the Wyoming ranch and Korea—Alyson Hagy reveals the intricacies of a profound, if unacknowledged, friendship between two very different men. Snow, Ashes is a suspenseful and engaging exploration of survival and failure and how the most vulnerable among us can have wisdom beyond measure.

“This novel is tough, tight, surprisingly lyrical at just the right moments, and damn near emotionally lethal. You don’t believe the writer will actually shoot you in the heart, then she does. Somehow, from the stark beauty of the Wyoming landscape, the leathery souls who inhabit it, and the freezing madness of combat in the Korean War, Hagy conjures a vision of the rarefied beauty of being human, however fine or horrific. Snow, Ashes will haunt you for a long while, but in a good way, like those heartbreaking memories you just can’t bear to let go.” —Brad Watson

“This tough story rings with earned trouble and the efforts to face it. Snow, Ashes is a wonderful novel full of the work men do to salvage their days—and their place on earth. Hagy is a writer working the new West as well as anyone else.” —Ron Carlson