The Days When Birds Come Back
A Novel
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
This tale of renovation and recovery is “an emotionally satisfying novel about the lingering effects of trauma and how people deal with guilt.”—Publishers Weekly
June is in transition, reeling from her divorce and trying to stay sober. She returns to the Oregon coast where she grew up, and must decide what to do with her late and much-loved grandparents’ charming cedar-shingled home, a place haunted by memories of her childhood.
Jameson comes highly recommended to renovate the old house in preparation for selling it, and from their first contact, he senses a connection with June. He too is unmoored as he struggles to redefine his marriage in the aftermath of loss. But what can the future hold as long as they are gripped so firmly by the past?
The Days When Birds Come Back, like the house itself, is a graceful testament to endurance, rebuilding, and the possibilities of coming home, from the acclaimed author of Things We Set on Fire and Pale Morning Light with Violet Swan.
“I don’t believe I’ve ever read such an exquisitely painful story that has on a daily basis so affected the way I interact with other humans, especially my dearest loved ones. This is a novel that makes me want to pay better attention.”—Bonnie Nadzam, author of Lions and Lamb
“Reed’s painterly descriptions of the Oregon coast are so vivid and real, so beautiful and lyrical that her writing is more like a visual art form.” — Portland Tribune
“Achingly exquisite…a blindingly beautiful book” — Caroline Leavitt, New York Times-bestselling author of With or Without You
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The affecting latest from Reed (Olivay) chronicles how the lives of a divorced writer and a carpenter are changed when the writer hires the carpenter to prepare her grandparents' Oregon property for sale. After her husband leaves her, June, who has problems with alcohol and is only a month sober, moves from their home in Ireland back to the now-dilapidated Nestucca Beach property where she was raised by her paternal grandparents following her father's suicide. On a recommendation from another handyman, June contacts Jameson, who used to live in Nestucca Beach with his wife Sarah Anne; they moved away three years ago after their seven-year-old twins were killed by a gunman. Sarah Anne is enamored with their foster child Ernest, whom she hopes to adopt. Jameson struggles with the idea, because it feels like a betrayal of the memory of their children. Both protagonists are guilt-ridden over the role they think they played in the deaths of their loved ones. Reed is skilled at unraveling their stories gradually, and is particularly adept at both drawing parallels between June and Jameson and depicting how the two help each other through their pain. Though the plot leans a bit too heavily on coincidence, this is an emotionally satisfying novel about the lingering effects of trauma and how people deal with guilt.
