At my friend JoHannah's suggestion, I read Jamie Langston Turner's Winter Birds. It tells the story of an elderly woman, Sophie Hess, who has auditioned several members of her family for the privilege of caring for her in her final years. If they take on the job, they will receive her money upon her death. She settles upon her nephew, Patrick, and his wife, Rachel, because they don't seem overly concerned with her money and they can offer a quiet, fairly private room.
Patrick and Rachel have been touched by tragedy (losing their two toddler children) and the old spinster is a little bit curious to see how it has colored them. Her own view of marriage altered when she discovered a dark secret just prior to her husband's death. She is a cynical, bitter old woman in many ways. She acknowledges that she was unattractive and that her professor husband only married her because she would be able to type his papers and help care for his two children. She was a difficult character to like, yet by the end, I did feel a sense of compassion for her character. She scorns Patrick's religious verbiage and his dreams of writing, but admires the quiet grace of Rachel.
She spends her days caught up in watching birds. Each chapter opens with a description of a bird and these characteristics are exemplified in the chapter. When she is not watching birds, she watches old television re-runs and reads Time magazine obituaries. The novel is full of references to Shakespeare and other great literature. But, its greatest strength was its fully believable characters and the insight into human nature. I enjoyed this book, but did find it a tiny bit depressing at times, because the narrator is very pessimistic and critical. Still, I was glad the author didn't try to make the novel a soap-box or have the main character make some remarkable transformation at the end.
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