From Booklist
Ava Sing Lo is the daughter of Helen, a Korean woman forced into prostitution on a segregated American army base, and one of the clients she serviced. All of her life, Ava has sensed that her mother, often depressed and withdrawn, is ashamed of her past and her daughter's dark skin. Helen is fascinated with birds, which seem to encompass for her some vital message about fragility and survival, but Ava has been accidentally killing her mother's pets since she was a little girl. Now Ava wants to head to the Salton Sea, the site of the worst bird die-off in American history, where she also hopes to repair her fragile relationship with her mother. This first novel is the winner of Barbara Kingsolver's Bellwether Prize for a work of socially and politically engaged fiction; however, Brandeis' novel suffers, at times, from overly fraught symbolism and an awkwardly tacked-on subplot. The author is at her best in her lyrical descriptions of nature and in the finely detailed portrait of the emotional tug-of-war between mother and child.
Joanne WilkinsonCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
--Ce texte provient d'une édition qui n'est plus publiée ou qui est non diponible.
Review
"Lyrical, imaginative, beautifully crafted, and deeply intelligent. Before anything else, its characters take you by the heart." (Barbara Kingsolver )
"[It] has an edgy beauty that enhances perfectly the seriousness of its contents." (Toni Morrison )
"A moving and perceptive first novel." (O magazine )
"THE BOOK OF DEAD BIRDS is a story of healing--a skillful, textured weaving of dark and light." (Donna M. Gershten, author of KISSING THE VIRGIN'S MOUTH )
"The plight of the mother and daughter is . heartbreaking." (Kirkus Reviews )
"[A] vivid tale of a woman learning to save and cherish life." (San Francisco Chronicle )
"Moving . powerful and strangely interesting." (St. Louis Post-Dispatch )
"An emotional story forged in crystalline prose." (Bust Magazine )
"Brandeis's writing is sensitive, lyrical and diverse." (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel )
"A uniquely inventive novel." (Rocky Mountain News )
"Intricate and elegant ... a novel that illustrates a compelling search for meaning that is ultimately familiar." (Denver Post )
