In Search of

Snow

A Novel

by Luis Alberto Urrea

University of Arizona Press, 259 pp., $16.95 (paper)

Recently back in print, In Search of Snow is award-winning Urrea’s first work about the Southwest and the human condition. This novel pretends to be an adventure tale, narrating the exploits of its hero who, after living 20-some years in the desert, goes in search of snow. Actually, the novel is an accumulation of the causes that make Mike McGurk, and his friend Bobo, hit the road. These causes revolve around Mike’s relationship with his father, Turk McGurk, and Turk’s Texaco, an odd place for Mike to grow up, and the stomping grounds for many worldly characters. Ramses Castro, the villain, is a perfect Wile E. Coyote, and the heroine is a sulky wannabe poet college girl who thinks Mike is a cowboy. All in all, the novel is cartoonish, fun, and fast-paced. We root for Mike as he sets off to find both snow and a new sense of self.

This article appears in April 7 • 2000.

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