Summary and Reviews of Winterkill by Karen Wunderman

Book Summary

For ten years, Ben Dalton has been fighting to keep his past a secret, but he's about to crash headlong into one of life's immutable truths: No matter how hard he runs, no matter how hard he tries, he can't outrun his past. And when it catches up to him, it just might destroy him.

An ex-communist in New York who became disillusioned with the Party in the 1940s, Ben soon learns that being a communist was easier than being an ex-communist. Old friends betray him and he finds himself facing a life of persecution and shame over his former affiliations. Determined to leave his past behind in the noise and grime of New York City, Ben moves his wife and baby daughter to the idyllic White Mountains of New Hampshire. But it's the 1950s, the Cold War is on, and this is small-town America, where people aren't known for embracing outsiders and their strange ideas.

Through a series of mishaps, word slowly leaks out about his past, and Ben becomes trapped in a web of lethargy and denial. But denial, it turns out, is useless, and Ben and his family become the targets of escalating attacks that take on a life of their own. Between assaults on himself and his family, Ben tries to get on with his life, but he's defeated at every turn. His wife devotes herself to trying to protect him, and while no one is paying attention, their daughter's dawning adolescent rebellion explodes into full-blown insurrection. Death and destruction come to a town where the people never wanted anything more than to mind their own business, and the fine stitching that holds the family and the town together begins to unravel.

A novel of rich emotional depth, Winterkill succeeds in eliciting sympathy and understanding for its unusual characters. The author challenges the reader to examine difficult issues in a thought-provoking and heart-wrenching story, and the result is a page-turner that leaves the reader reluctant to depart this fictional world and close the cover for one last time.