Reviews of The Blizzard Party by Jack Livings

The Blizzard Party

by Jack Livings

The Blizzard Party by Jack Livings X
The Blizzard Party by Jack Livings
  • Critics' Opinion:

    Readers' Opinion:

  • First Published:
    Feb 2021, 416 pages

    Paperback:
    Feb 2022, 416 pages

    Genres

  • Rate this book


Book Reviewed by:
Peggy Kurkowski
Buy This Book

About this Book

Book Summary

A panoramic novel set in New York City during the catastrophic blizzard of February 1978.

On the night of February 6, 1978, a catastrophic nor'easter struck the city of New York. On that night, in a penthouse in the Upper West Side's stately Apelles, a crowd gathered for a wild party. And on that night, Mr. Albert Haynes Caldwell―a partner emeritus at Swank, Brady & Plescher; Harvard class of '26; father of three; widower; atheist; and fiscal conservative―hatched a plan to fake a medical emergency and toss himself into the Hudson River, where he would drown.

In the eye of this storm: Hazel Saltwater, age six. The strange events of that night irrevocably altered many lives, but none more than hers. The Blizzard Party is Hazel's reconstruction of that night, an exploration of love, language, conspiracy, auditory time travel, and life after death.

Cinematic, with a vast cast of characters and a historical scope that spans World War II Poland, the lives of rich and powerful Manhattanites in the late 1970's, and the enduring effects of 9/11, Jack Livings's The Blizzard Party is an epic novel in the form of a final farewell.

1.

I am Hazel Saltwater, daughter of Erwin and Sarah Saltwater, a citizen of the borough of Manhattan, proprietor, researcher, part-time recluse, widow, fury, known to the waiters at Wavy Grain Bistro (formerly the Cosmic Diner) as Ms. Patel, known to the co-op board at the Apelles as a compliant and reliable neighbor, among resident children of same known to be a Halloween enthusiast, known to my dry cleaner Tio as a generous December tipper, to my acquaintances a person of pleasant demeanor, to my lenders an exemplary credit risk, to my friends a mystic, a crazy woman, an apopheniac, a rationalist, an open wound.

It is a gray morning. The men working on the building across the street have arrived with their coffee in paper cups and egg sandwiches wrapped in foil. They've staked out the stoop, draping themselves variously over the railing, across the steps, boots on balustrades, shooting the shit, their voices pinwheeling like kids in a schoolyard. The contractor's big Ford pickup, ...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

BookBrowse Review

BookBrowse

The task Livings sets himself is a daunting one: how to weave all these uniquely striated lives and damaged psyches into a tapestry that forms a meaningful pattern. It is as if each character we meet in The Blizzard Party is a snowflake pulled from the blinding storm, set upon crushed black velvet and seen through a microscope, brilliantly and uniquely attenuated. How each of these snowflakes, so unique and ostensibly unconnected, swirl and crash into each other over the course of one wild night is a testament to Livings' ability to write a bold clincher...continued

Full Review (676 words).

This review is available to non-members for a limited time. For full access, become a member today.

(Reviewed by Peggy Kurkowski).

Media Reviews

Interview Magazine
Every so often, a novel comes along that manages to capture the glorious, demented cacophony of New York City life—one of high highs, low lows, love and paranoia and neighborly angst and bizarro weirdness—and The Blizzard Party does just that, reminding us of the strange breed of people called New Yorkers...Livings is a master prose stylist—his voice hilarious, playful, shouting to the rafters, blinking with ingenious descriptions.

New York Times
[A] raucously inventive tale of loss and erasure told with an authorial assurance uncommon in a first novel...this rollickingly bleak rendering of 1970s New York is well worth a visit.

San Francisco Chronicle
The Blizzard Party is an expansive, discursive novel that allows us into the minds of dozens of bit players at seemingly minor moments. That the author somehow manages to fit it all together, puzzle-like, by the end is a feat of acrobatic storytelling. But this is not a book that exists for the sake of the story. This is a book that exists for the sake of getting at the truth of being alive...[T]he writing can verge on navel-gazing and self-indulgence, pulling the reader away from whatever story line she is trying to keep track of.

Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
[A] first novel that might be called a detour de force: sprawling, discursive, loose-limbed (and impressive...Livings may not quite have Wolfe's journalistic chops, but he's a far more skillful and empathetic novelist, and what seems moralistic and preening in Wolfe's books reads here mostly as playful and nimble...An exuberant, everything-and-the-kitchen-sink pleasure.

Publishers Weekly (starred review)
[B]rilliant...Livings calls to mind the work of Michael Chabon as he brings insight into the way events and circumstances shape his characters' lives. This is one to savor.

Booklist
[An] ambitious debut...[The Blizzard Party] features moments of brilliance, especially in the dialogue and the surprising connections. A literary feast.

Reader Reviews

Joseph Owens

Enveloping Masterpiece
This engaging work is most difficult to put aside. The Character Development is engrossing and the various facets of the central story are captivating.

Write your own review!

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Beyond the Book

Impact of the Blizzard of 1978 on the Northeastern U.S.

Cars stopped on highway near Boston covered in snowJack Livings' debut novel The Blizzard Party revolves around an incident that occurs during the historic "Blizzard of '78," a massive storm that hit the northeastern United States February 5-7, 1978, burying New England, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and the New York metropolitan area under feet of snow. (This was a particularly harsh winter, as a blizzard had also hit the Midwest about two weeks earlier.) Besides the historic snow totals, it was an extremely memorable storm both for its severity and for how ill-prepared area residents were for the impact.

From a meteorological perspective, the strength of the storm was unprecedented. The nor'easter registered hurricane-force 86 mph winds, with gusts up to 111 mph. In addition to the high ...

This "beyond the book" feature is available to non-members for a limited time. Join today for full access.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Readalikes

Read-alikes Full readalike results are for members only

More books by Jack Livings

If you liked The Blizzard Party, try these:

  • There There jacket

    There There

    by Tommy Orange

    Published 2019

    About this book

    Fierce, angry, funny, heartbreaking - Tommy Orange's first novel is a wondrous and shattering portrait of an America few of us have ever seen, and it introduces a brilliant new author at the start of a major career.

  • Moonglow jacket

    Moonglow

    by Michael Chabon

    Published 2017

    About this book

    More by this author

    Following on the heels of his New York Times bestselling novel Telegraph Avenue, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon delivers another literary masterpiece: a novel of truth and lies, family legends, and existential adventure - and the forces that work to destroy us.

Non-members are limited to two results. Become a member
Search read-alikes again
How we choose readalikes
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Become a Member

Join BookBrowse today to start discovering exceptional books!

Find out more


Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: A Mystery of Mysteries
    A Mystery of Mysteries
    by Mark Dawidziak
    Edgar Allan Poe biographers have an advantage over other writers because they don't have to come up ...
  • Book Jacket: Moonrise Over New Jessup
    Moonrise Over New Jessup
    by Jamila Minnicks
    Jamila Minnicks' debut novel Moonrise Over New Jessup received the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially...
  • Book Jacket
    The Magician's Daughter
    by H.G. Parry
    "Magic isn't there to be hoarded like dragon's treasure. Magic is kind. It comes into ...
  • Book Jacket: The Great Displacement
    The Great Displacement
    by Jake Bittle
    On August 4, 2021, California's largest single wildfire to date torched through the small mountain ...

Book Club Discussion

Book Jacket
The Nurse's Secret
by Amanda Skenandore
A fascinating historical novel based on the little-known story of America's first nursing school.

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Once We Were Home
    by Jennifer Rosner

    From the author of The Yellow Bird Sings, a novel based on the true stories of children stolen in the wake of World War II.

  • Book Jacket

    The Lost English Girl
    by Julia Kelly

    A story of love, betrayal, and motherhood set against the backdrop of World War II and the early 1960s.

Who Said...

Not doing more than the average is what keeps the average down.

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

R Peter T P P

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.