Rebecca's Reviews > The White Book

A series of short, poetic meditations on the color white. The narrator is haunted by the story of her mother’s first child, a daughter who came early and died within two hours because of their winter isolation. “I was told that she was a girl, with a face as white as a crescent-moon rice cake.” Ever since, she’s felt the weight of obligation, as if she has to live a doubly significant life to make up for her older sister’s being snatched away. Snow, ashes, pebbles, butterflies, the moon: the thematic chapters are often only one paragraph, sometimes just a few lines, about the cold clarity of things that are white. The narration alternates between the first and the third person, and there are occasional photographs interspersed. What with the mixed media and the hybrid form, this is a strikingly different sort of book, but I found that all its lyrical language simply washed over me and never left much of an impression.