Novella
The difference between poetry and prose thins in this book to almost nothingness. This story is written in a masterful style, flowing along so easily, so beautifully, that one almost forgets that one is reading.
The narrator of the book is an insurance adjuster and is being called out to examine scenes of massive bird deaths. He cannot explain it but seems drawn to the carnage and takes along with him his stepdaughter Caitlin, both of them orphans of loss without their magnet, the narrator's wife and Caitlin's mother. The incidents, while horrifying, are drawing the two lost souls closer together. Caitlin is an avid birder and turns to her stepfather to explain the events. It isn't hard to picture the two characters in the story as two birds themselves, batting against the cage doors of their loss. Ultimately, the story is more about the two people than about the mystery of the fall of the birds, how they will manage their lives and how they can even bear to go on.
It is a novella, a very quick read and I found that is was over before I even realized it. I wanted the story to keep going--it is one of those tales that leaves the reader wondering about these people and this mystery that is never quite solved. Beautiful and haunting and a book that will stay with you long after you've closed the pages.
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