Summer Snow is an intriguing, slender volume, its nature captured by its subtitle. A sometimes strange mixture of autobiography, reflective personal essays, a dash of comparative literature, and occasionally fiction, it is entertaining, thought provoking, and at times enlightening. In general, the most satisfying pieces in the collection are those in which Trudier Harris, a professor of literature at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, recounts her memories of adolescence in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, or employs her keen powers of observation and analysis to explore the manner in which racism continues to impact daily life in modern America.