Stevie Turner's Reviews > The Weight of Snow and Regret

I read this well-researched book in a few days. The Weight of Snow and Regret can be classed as ‘Faction’, as the Sheldon Poor Farm in Vermont was an actual place before it eventually burned down in 1978. The author has created mostly fictional characters, some down on their luck and some feeble-minded, who resided at the farm from the late 1920s to 1968. Chapters jump back and forth in time, but each year is clearly marked at the start of the chapter.

The book begins in 1968 with what I assumed was the main character, Claire. Claire has left her husband and child in order to ‘find herself’, but her life has not turned out the way she thought it would. However, Claire disappears halfway through the book and we don’t really get to discover what happens to her. I would have liked to know; perhaps there could have been some information added at the end along with the October 2025 update.

We then travel back to the 1920s, where Hazel survives challenges that no child should face. She and her older brother Sam end up at Sheldon Poor Farm until Sam decides to run away. Hazel is left to endure a young life full of hardship and physical work. On the way home from senior school one day she meets Paul, a man 13 years older than her, who offers to drive her back to the farm after she twists her ankle and cannot walk. It’s no wonder they eventually marry, as Paul seems the only person to show Hazel any kindness or compassion. When Paul loses his job, he is coincidentally offered the post of Manager at the Sheldon Poor Farm, and Hazel finds herself back there again but this time as Matron/Housekeeper in charge of cleaning up the general squalor and making sure all the residents are clean and fed.

This book will interest those who enjoy reading about other people’s misfortunes, as there is much unrelenting bad weather and misery between the pages, hence the well thought-out title. I suppose there’s not much to celebrate when people are reduced to staying at a poor farm, but it would have been perhaps nice to include one or two little positive moments (maybe Alice’s outcome?), to avoid too much depressing content.

I give this book on average 4 stars; the story itself 3 stars, and 5 stars for the amount of research that has gone into writing it.