This slim volume by the Boston Globe’s books columnist is beautifully packaged in an edition published by my favorite Boston house, Godine.  I met MacLaughlin, a neighbor in Cambridge, when I took her class on writing book reviews at Grub Street in Boston several years ago.  Her first book was a finalist for the New England Book Award, and this volume won the Massachusetts Book Award.  It is the accompaniment of her book-length essay Summer Solstice published three years earlier.

MacLaughlin shares her inner thoughts and feelings on the darkest day, the longest night of the year which I experienced over this last weekend.  Darkness is the dominant setting as she ponders the beauty of snow on moonlit nights and the superstition and fears that the long dark night has contributed to various cultures.  Over all of this is the sense of mortality and the finality of death which follows upon the darkness.  In the midst of all of this, there is the hope that derives from the knowledge that each day from now forward is a little longer.  Beginning slowly with a minute here and a couple of minutes there and gathering speed until March finds the spring equinox and twelve hours of daylight heading towards the summer solstice on June 20, 2025.

MacLaughlin writes beautifully and quotes one of my favorite Vermont poets, Mary Ruefle in this description of snow: “Snow changes the world. It changes the light. It changes all the edges.  Reufle’s poem closes with union: “When it snows like this I feel the whole world has joined me in isolation and silence.”   This is a good example of the lyrical tone of MacLaughlin’s writing.

Black Sparrow Press was founded in 1966 to publish the work of Charles Bukowski and other radical writers.  It closed in 2002 but was reborn as part of Godine Publishing in 2020. In keeping with the standards of both publishing houses, this is a lovely volume.  Originally, there were 90 copies of both the Spring and the Winter Solstice volumes, signed by the author and letter-pressed. I was fortunate to acquire the Spring volume, but the signed Winter volume edition was not available.

This is a fine book to curl up with on that winter solstice night.  The 15 hours of darkness in our latitude provides more than enough time to read it and savor its language during that one night.