The Blizzard of 88

by Mary Cable

New Word City Inc., October 6, 2017            
(Library loan ebook)

146 pages

I first read this when this ebook version came out in 2017 and decided to pick it up again after reading The Children’s Blizzard by David Laskin. As [will be] mentioned in the previous post, I thought the storms had been the same one, with the books telling the story as it took place in two different parts of the country—only to discover that there were two separate storms two months apart.

While Mary Cable’s blizzard treatment does not have the technical and scientific explanations that David Laskin provides in his, hers is just as good a read, and she refrains from inventing dialog. It’s a thoroughly enjoyable read, given the subject matter, and while she relied heavily on contemporary news accounts (as did other authors), she has a unique talent to animate the written word. The narrative of the plight of the harbor pilots is extremely poignant, and in fact gave me a glimpse of a bygone industry—and yes, I know that there are still harbor pilots but how they go about their job was drastically changed as a result of this event. Overall this is a great look at life in 1888 New York and New England, albeit one that is seen through tragedy.

Mary Cable (1920 – 2013) wrote over a dozen books (not to mention her time at American Heritage magazine) including one I’m looking forward to reading later, Black Odyssey: The Case of the Slave Ship ‘Amistad’ which she wrote long before nearly anyone else took up the topic (Viking Press 1971). What bothers me about this ebook edition is that the cover art is NOT from Cable’s book, but rather it is from yet another work on the subject titled The Blizzard of’88 (because of course it is) by Irving Werstein published by Thomas Y. Crowell Company 1960. I bought a copy and will describe that version in about twelve or so posts from here. Meanwhile, here is the original cover:

by Mary Cable

Atheneum, 1988            

198 pages