Snow

We know, the title totally gave that one away, right? Yeah, there's a lot of snow in this book. As if all the trial drama weren't enough for you, there's a wicked snowstorm hitting San Piedro, which manages to make life messy for basically everyone. The electricity goes out, the roads are bad, and everyone is at the mercy of nature for the time being.

Of course, snow's not just there to look pretty and make life difficult for the characters—trust us, these characters have it hard enough already. It's also a big honking metaphor for forces that are beyond one's control, for the unpredictable nature of life. Guterson makes this pretty obvious when he describes the islanders' attitudes toward the snow:

Those who had lived on the island a long time knew that the storm's outcome was beyond their control. This storm might well be like others past that had caused them to suffer, had killed even—or perhaps it might dwindle beneath tonight's stars and give their children snowbound happiness. Who knew? Who could predict? If disaster, so be it, they said to themselves. There was nothing to be done except what could be done. The rest—like the salt water around them, which swallowed the snow without any effort, remaining what it was implacably—was out of their hands, beyond. (17.11)

So, you see, the snow isn't really just snow; it symbolizes all the outside forces that intrude on the lives of the characters, over which they have often have little to no control. Sound familiar? It probably should. After all, Kabuo has been imprisoned for a crime he didn't commit, largely on account of prejudices he had no part in creating (as well as a kind of striking amount of bad luck). His whole life has been turned upside down as a result of the bogus charges, and he's at the mercy of a racist jury that thinks his quietness and reserve are signs of guilt and being a jerk. Yikes.

Then, of course, there's the fact that the Japanese American inhabitants of San Piedro were forcibly detained during World War II, even though they had had nothing to do with Pearl Harbor. That's a serious "forces beyond your control" sitch', if you ask us, and it's had long-lasting repercussions for the characters.

Sorry to be a downer about everyone's favorite form of precipitation (what, you were going to vote for hail?), but snow is a lot more than a pretty face in this story.