The plot of Hobokenite Gregory Galloway’s first novel, As Simple As Snow, is described by the teenage male protagonist within the first few pages:
“This is what I know happened, or think happened. I fell in love with a girl, and then she left, and later she tried to come back, or I thought she did, and I went after her.”
Galloway’s critically acclaimed first novel was released in soft cover this month by Putnam ($14) after a hardcover debut last year. Since that time, it has won the “Alex Award” for books with special appeal for young adults ages 12 to 18. But the book appeals to adults as well.
It is a clearly-written, first-person tale of a high school student who falls in love with his new classmate, Anna Cayne – a brilliant Goth girl who dresses in black and likes to write obituaries.
As the two of them fumble their way through first love, the main character, known to readers only as G___, is consumed by absorbing all of Anna’s knowledge (she is a heavy reader and shows off through cryptic jokes and odd notes). G__ is a sort of blank slate for a strange girl to write on.
Anna Cayne informs the main character that his name is in dactylic meter. She tells him about her favorite authors and gives him mix-CDs (something author and former record store employee Galloway became fond of back when they were still done on tape).
The novel is filled with enough mystery and clues to keep any reader just as hooked as the lovestruck main character, who inevitably spends days ruminating on about Anna’s motivations and fate.
The writing is intelligent without being pompous, heartfelt without being syrupy.
The writing life…
Author Galloway graduated from the University of Iowa in 1984, attained a master’s degree there in 1986, and got an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in poetry in 1989.
In 1990, Galloway came to New York City and worked in publishing and marketing. Internet consulting took him to Chicago in 1996, and then the Jersey girl whom he had been dating lured him back to Hoboken in 1999. And readers, she married him.
While living in Hoboken, he began writing As Simple As Snow. He sent the first 180 pages to a New York agent who had liked some of his short stories back in the ’90s. The agent was hooked on the story and sent drafts to a dozen publishers. Three were interested, and Putnam won out.
Through Galloway’s web site, www.assimpleassnow.com, readers can look for clues to the mysteries at the end of the novel. Galloway says that different people have different reactions.