News — Powder

If, as Zola said, “art is a corner of creation filtered through a temperament,” then Tobias Wolff’s short story “Powder” is a subtle, quiet, finely wrought piece of art. Wolff’s corner of creation is the Pacific Northwest, a ski resort at Mt. Baker steadily being covered in fresh snow. The temperament belongs to the narrator, a boy dragged up the mountain on Christmas Eve by his father, a father whose numerous screw-ups have driven him outside the family. Getting his son home late to his anxious mother, they both know, will be the last straw. But the father insists on...