Review: Listen to, learn from the birds
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 11 9, 2011
"So, what's with the robins this spring?" Caitlan asks. It's mid-April in the Hudson River Valley, a week before her seventeenth birthday, and the robins always return before her birthday.So where are they? What about the bird feeder? It hasn't had any visitors for weeks? And where's the morning birdcall, the normal "chip and chant, twitter and gurgle, slur and rasp" that greets the sunrise?In "The Fall of the Birds," as in any good yarn the suspense builds incrementally, uncertainty then unease gradually give way to menace and dread that becomes the fear that things are going to get really bad.The narrator of "Fall of the Birds," is a insurance company claims adjuster. Caitlan is his stepdaughter. They're both grieving the recent death of Caitlan's mother. Both stepfather and stepdaughter are birders, knowledgeable about the birds around them and keen observers of avian habits and habitats.When for no explainable reason birds begin dropping from the sky like gilded stones and when vagrant species of birds not normally seen anywhere near the Northeast begin congregating outside the window, the world seems to have titled on its axis and the alarm becomes palpable.We're reminded that canaries went down into the mines for good reason and ultimately we're asked to consider if what's happening to the birds is a harbinger for humans. It's something unbalancing, a cause for unease.Morrow's style to some may seem fussy. His vocabulary often relies on words such as palaver, vicissitudes and macadam. In his Amazon review (above) Jason Kirk says Morrow's language is "gravid yet light." The story is written in the first person. It's a good choice for a voice that's eloquent, descriptive.A theme is the resilience of the human spirit. The birds are dying and a father and daughter are grieving over the death of their wife and mother. The future is uncertain. It's just at that point that "an incandescent ball of light" appears dancing about in the bushes. When's the last time, if ever, you've seen an indigo bunting?