"Her story could be told in other people's things. The postcards and
the photographs. A garnet ring and a needlepoint of the homestead. The
aprons hanging from her kitchen door. Her soft, faded, dog-eared copy of
Little House in the Big Woods. A closet full of dresses sewn before
she was born. All these things tell a story, but is it hers?"
Isabel is a single twenty-something in Portland, Oregon, who repairs
damaged books in the basement of the local library, dreaming of a life
she can't quite reach. She is filled with longing--for a life in
Amsterdam even though she's never visited, for the unrequited love of a
coworker, for a simpler time from her childhood in Alaska among the
threatened glaciers she loves, and for the perfect vintage dress to wear
to a party that just might change everything.
Unfolding over the course of a single day, Alexis M. Smith's shimmering
debut finds Isabel looking into her past--remembering her parents'
separation, a meeting with an astrologer, and a life-changing encounter
with a glacier--and shows us how fleeting, everyday moments can reveal
an entire life. In classic movies, in old photographs and unsent
postcards, rare books, and thrifted gems, Glaciers tells the story of a
young woman's love of the past and a hope to make something new and all
her own.
