FICTION

THE WEIGHT OF WINTER by Cathie Pelletier (Viking: $21.95; 395 pp.) No one in this novel ever quotes the Bob Dylan line about how those who aren’t busy living are busy dying, but it’s the thread that runs through Pelletier’s rather remarkable story of Mattagash, Me. The people in this small town are facing yet another monochromatic, snowbound winter, their lives incestuously monitored by the mailman, who is reluctant to hand over an envelope unless the recipient is willing to divulge its contents. They have nothing but life and death on their minds. Can Amy Joy ever persuade her mother Sicily to move into the rest home? Is there any salve for a dysfunctional family’s imploded rage, other than murder? And what of the past? Each of Pelletier’s characters bears the emotional scars of past tragedies, all recalled by their creator with a mixture of comic resignation and still-fresh regrets. One woman’s recollection of a childhood friend, who died without ever realizing her dream of becoming a “catalogue girl” (a model), is painfully vivid; the author’s blunt, feeling prose does it justice. This is not, however, a bleak tale of despair. What makes Pelletier’s work so engaging is that she is absolutely, inherently, funny: She doesn’t crack wise, and she doesn’t resort to one-liners. She just sees the essential weirdness of life--and walks the tightrope between humor and grief without once losing her balance.