If Jonathan Strange was a riotous meeting of Austen and Dickens, then Piranesi’s pole stars are Jorge Luis Borges and CS Lewis. “I found Lewis at a very impressionable age and then he sort of organised the inside of my head,” she says. “And that’s just the way it has been ever since.”
Snow Country is episodic with no strong plot. It depends for its interest, which is considerable, on the characters and conversation. It is a novel of ideas, an exploration of the question of human consciousness.
So this is a story of survival and resilience. It is also, in many ways, a braid of love stories. It details and celebrates Byers’ love for her spouse Amy and for her twin children, Franny and Theo. It also celebrates communities of mutual care and regard that queer people have to create in an often-hostile environment, and the resilience and pride that are engendered in those communities.