Boy, Snow, Bird: a poet's review.
(spoiler warning: I will be discussing this book in detail and will be revealing important plot points as well as the ending. If you have not read this book and don’t want to be spoiled please read no further. Additionally there are mentions of SA, transphobia and abuse.)
Recently I read a book called Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi and felt the need to review it as I wasn’t finding many reviews discussed its controversial points fully. Bear with me as I’ve never actually reviewed a book in a formal setting like this and am likely to make mistakes.
So first for a bit of a recap. Boy, Snow, Bird is a story that is loosely based on the Cinderella story from the “evil” step-mother’s perspective set around the 1950’s in the northeastern United States. We initially follow teenaged Boy as she runs away from the abusive household where she was raised by her father, the rat catcher Frank. She comes to a town called Flax Hills, an artist community, where it seems most everyone creates detailed, fine works of art for a living. Of course our main character has no real skill set so the first part of the book is about her struggle to survive and create an identity for herself.
Through a friend she meets a man named Arturo Whitman, an ex-college history professor turned metal worker. They end up getting married which makes Boy the new step-mother for the ethereal, doll-like Snow. Snow is the pinnacle of 1950’s beauty with blonde hair and clear white skin. Through-out the story we are constantly reminded of the way Snow’s family dotes on her and gushes over her perceived “perfection”. We even have the small moments of Boy bonding with her young step-daughter as Boy begins her journey as wife and mother, a job she has no role model for.
Boy eventually becomes pregnant with her own daughter, who she names Bird. When Bird is born, however, it becomes very clear that the Whitmans are a “white passing” black family. This allows Oyeyemi to explore the cruelty and sadness of colorism through not only Boy, a white woman now the mother of a black daughter, but also through the eyes of Bird and the family dynamics of the Whitmans. She uses this to show us the audience some of the ways that racism affects minorities when it becomes internalized for survival. It also makes us very aware of why Snow's family puts her on a pedestal.
After Bird’s birth and Boy’s realization of the secret the Whitman’s have been keeping, Boy decides to send Snow to live with Arturo’s sister Clara, who is not white passing. Snow ends up staying indefinitely with her Aunt and Uncle and has no contact with Bird through her younger years. This sets us up for the next two “books”.
Okay with some of the overview done I’d like to discuss some of the points that I really enjoyed in this book, starting with Oyeyemi’s use of mirrors. She often notes how her characters perceive themselves in mirrors or how they don’t seem themselves at all. Oyeyemi discusses identity throughout this book and mirrors allow her to draw many different people into similar situations to study their perceptions of themselves.
With Boy one of her noted issues regarding mirrors is that she has a hard time not staring at reflection. This sets us up for the “evil” stepmother trope, giving us the idea that she’s a bit vain. Additionally, we begin to see how she identifies herself and how physical appearance plays a role in her perception of the world. Notably, when Arturo gives her a bracelet he crafted for her with a snake that loops around her forearm we see her struggle with the acknowledgement that she is “evil”. Later in the story the accusation that she is “evil” is also levied against her by her father giving us a little insight as to why Boy believes she “isn’t normal” or “good”.
On the other hand Bird mentions multiple times that she often does not see her reflection. I believe that this is indicative of the fact that she doesn’t feel like she fits in, most especially with her family. Bird is very aware of her mixed race heritage and how her family looks down on her for her appearance. Also her relationship with her mother is stressed due to the politics of the family and how her mother treated her sister Snow. It seems that she struggles with knowing just who she is, which I believe is symbolized by the fact that she is an excellent mimic. She also elicits other odd powers like speaking to spiders tying her to the idea that she’s not wanted by her family the same way spiders aren’t in most households.
Snow also notes that she doesn’t always perceive herself in mirrors which I think has to do with her being raised in the opposite type of racial setting from Bird allowing them to have a similar issue of perception of self. Bird was raised as a black girl in a “white passing” black family while Snow was raised as a “white passing” black girl in a black family. All of this can deeply weigh on a person's psychology and idea of identity due to the underlying racism in society. Snow recognizes that she is different from both her black friends and the white people in her world, thus she may have a hard time creating a self image with no role model to work from.
With Boy we see a lot of change as she becomes a mother and becomes very protective of her daughter. She sends Snow away because she feels that the child is a threat to her daughter since Snow is idolized by the rest of the family. She also begins to view the rest of the Whitmans more harshly, seemingly because they don’t accept Bird the same way they do Snow. Honestly there’s so much nuance that goes into this portion of the story, on one hand you have Boy who’s natural desire as a mother is to protect her child and the family’s unpleasant reaction to Bird would trigger that. But on the other hand we the reader need to remember that it’s difficult to be black in our racist society so it becomes harder to fully fault the Whitmans as the world they live in has created horrible standards for them to survive in. It only makes sense that they came up with tactics to live more comfortably and one of those things was leaning into being “white passing”. Oyeyemi opens us up to having the discussion of colorism in racist societies in a fictional setting which I found very thought provoking and insightful.
Now there were a few things that were far more controversial in the book but honestly I believe most of it can be chalked up to Oyeyemi’s normal writing style not fully working for the story that she was handling. Many of the reviews I saw on this book were either praising it avidly or criticizing the ending most specifically. I’m deeply interested in discussing the last three chapters because the rest of the book is honestly just a very good read.
In the end of the story Oyeyemi brings in a surprise twist as so many writers do. Sadly it’s in the last three chapters which means she doesn’t have a lot of time to properly vet her ideas and make the plot twist really count for the story due to the complexity and nuance of the twist itself. Many of the reviews of her work I’ve read say that she has a knack for leaving a lot of open ends in her writing and for some stories that’s not a problem. However, given that the twist was Frank the rat catcher being a trans man, and this being the reason Boy doesn’t “know” her mom, this plot twist doesn’t fulfill the story.
In theory this plot twist could have played well with the rest of the book as it dealt a lot with identity and motherhood but with only three chapters to explore it it’s harder to balance it within the story. Honestly, had she played it out and allowed Boy to come to an understanding of her father being trans but not accepting of his abuse I believe that would have been the best end result. As it stands Frank is a Villian throughout the story and isn’t given a second thought until the last three chapters, which does come off feeling transphobic. I don’t believe this is what Oyeyemi is going for personally, but I don’t know her and have never spoken with her about it.
Lots of the reviews I’ve seen regarding this ending point out that it’s a very transphobic ending, however as far as our main characters view on the matter it would make sense that Boy views trans people as a mental illness since back in the 50’s that’s how it was. However, given the growth we do see in our main character through the course of the story I firmly think she could have created an ending where Frank and Boy discuss Frank's transition. This would have opened up an opportunity to discuss not only transitioning in the 1950’s but also the parent/child relationship that Boy reflects on during the book a lot already and rape culture as it affects women and the LGBTQ+ community historically.
Personally I’m sad that this part of the book only lasted three chapters and ends with Boy and family going to “save” Frank from being trans. I do think that given the time period they may have started out the journey that way but with identity being a main topic in the story I would have enjoyed Oyeyemi pushing the discussion further. Honestly, if she ever follows up with a sequel I’d be willing to give it a chance.
