Halloween Bingo 2024
This book lingered on my TBR for two years and I wish I'd read it sooner. It is beautiful. (And I have a bit of a thing about healing-from-grief books.) I had added it to my list because the title and the cover enchanted me. When I plunged in and realized how many birders were involved, I felt like it was written just for me.
I have kind of a hazy understanding of magical realism. But this story, with its mysterious rare blackbirds that only appear in the mulberry trees from midnight to one a.m. and the special pies that allow the consumer to dream of the dead, helped me understand the concept. (The pie concept reminded me a lot of Jeffrey Ford's short story The Drowned Life, where drinking a shot of liquor made from deathberries allowed the drinker to visit with a departed loved one for one more time. I loved it too.)
Why is it that the American South works so well for these kind of novels? I think that's what I'll be pondering for the next while. I've read so many Southern gothic type books and it just seems to fit naturally.
“I admit I'm sad that there might not be more pies, but they've already given me the lesson I needed to learn from them.”
“What's that?” I asked, genuinely curious.
“That a person you love is never truly gone--they're always there, whether it's in a memory….or in a dream"
Or in a heart.
Read for the Magical Realism square of my Bingo card.
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