Black and blue

The title of Eowyn Ivey's 2025 novel Black Woods Blue Sky was inspired by Marcel Proust. In Swann's Way he wrote, "Now are the woods all black, but still the sky is blue. May you always see a blue sky overhead, my young friend ..."

Those words fit Ivey's novel very well, for it is a story about black woods and blue skies, life at its best and at its worst.

Arthur, raised at first by bears, then adopted by a human couple, doesn't seem to know what he is. Sometimes he wears a bearskin and lives a bear's life. At other times he lives as a man, even if an odd one, in the Alaskan wilderness.

Birdie, a bar maid who drinks almost as much as she serves, lives a wild life while trying to raise her little girl, Emaleen, at the same time. She falls in love with Arthur, a wild man whom she thinks might be able to tame her, and takes Emaleen to live with him. The girl realizes before her mother does that Arthur may be more bear than man.

In the last portion of the novel, Emaleen is a grown young woman who returns to Alaska and, against the advice of others, tries to find Arthur.

Ivey gives us a powerful story of hope and love, while taking us through the black woods at the same time.