A Catalog of Birds

by Laura Harrington

Overview

This novel of a wounded Vietnam veteran’s homecoming is both “a searing war story and a page-turning thriller” (The Washington Post)

.Billy Flynn has always wanted to fly, like the birds he draws with pencils and paints. He is also a patriot, so in 1970 he cannot resist the call to serve in Vietnam. A year later, he is the only one to survive after his helicopter is shot down.A wounded Billy returns home to his family in upstate New York, including Nell, his adoring younger sister. In his absence, the woman he loves has mysteriously disappeared. His wounds have crippled his ability to hold a pencil and his hearing loss has cut him off from the natural world he loves so much. Nell, a brilliant student headed for a career in science, is determined to do all that’s possible to save him.
A Catalog of Birds is the story of a community confronted with shattered innocence and with wounds that may never heal, in “a beautiful book about family, loss, and love [whose] memorable characters will haunt you long after you put it down” (Claire Messud, New York Times–bestselling author of The Woman Upstairs).

“Stunning natural descriptions provide a rich backdrop for Harrington’s beautifully articulated coming-of-age story, which captures the pain of loved ones grappling with the after effects of war.”—Booklist (starred review)

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781609454036
Publisher:	Europa Editions, Incorporated
Publication date:	07/11/2017
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Laura Harrington, has written dozens of plays, musicals, and operas, which have been produced in venues ranging from Off-Broadway to the Houston Grand Opera. Harrington has twice won both the Massachusetts Cultural Council Award in playwriting and the Clauder Competition for best new play in New England. Laura teaches playwriting at MIT where she was awarded the 2009 Levitan Prize. Alice Bliss , her first novel, won the 2012 Massachusetts Book Award in Fiction.

Editorial Reviews

05/08/2017
Harrington (Alice Bliss) reexamines familiar topics in her second novel, tenderly sketching a portrait of war’s lasting impact on veterans who returned from the conflict alive but not entirely whole and the loved ones who were waiting for them at home. Billy Flynn, a young man with a deep connection to the wildlife in his sleepy upstate New York hometown, struggles to reassemble his shattered life after his medic helicopter is shot down in Vietnam. Billy’s failed attempt to rescue his copilot leaves him with severe burns, nerve damage that destroys his ability to fly or draw, and guilt-laced anger that drowns out his efforts to sleep at night or pursue his old ambitions during the day. His younger sister, Nell, puts her college plans on hold as she fights to hold her disintegrating family together. The narrative progresses slowly, digging unflinchingly into the wounds that linger long after a battlefield has been emptied. While some plot threads are left dangling at the conclusion, Harrington excels at creating believable characters with nuanced motivations. Her prose sings, sweeping through heavy topics with a quiet sense of resilience and buoyant hope. (July)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for A Catalog of Birds

“Stunning natural descriptions provide a rich backdrop for Harrington’s beautifully articulated coming-of-age story, which captures the pain of loved ones grappling with the after effects of war.”
—Booklist (Starred)

“A sensitive rendering of shattered lives.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“ … one of the great pleasures of reading A Catalog of Birds  is that it’s as impossible to categorize as it is to put down. The smooth path of Nell’s life is interrupted by tragedy. Her best friend, Megan, disappears mysteriously, and her beloved brother, Billy, comes home from Vietnam severely injured. At once, the novel becomes a searing war story and a page-turning thriller.”
—The Washington Post

"Her prose sings, sweeping through heavy topics with a quiet sense of resilience and buoyant hope."
—Publisher's Weekly

"In language that is both lyrical and horrifying,  A Catalog of Birds  questions what it means to be an American, and offers what can be salvaged, or hoped, for a future."
—Consequence Magazine

“Harrington’s prose is fierce and tender both, and the story so powerful. Taut and true, A Catalog of Birds is a beautiful book about family, loss and love. Its memorable characters will haunt you long after you put it down.”
—Claire Messud, author of   The Woman Upstairs

“Laura Harrington’s lyrical and unforgettable A Catalog of Birds explores what makes a life worth living. Harrington paints both human frailties and the Vietnam conflict with empathetic clarity she does best and the parallels between our recent wars in the Middle-East are both nuanced and startlingly wise.”
—Siobahn Fallon, The Confusion of Languages
 
“ A Catalog of Birds  is a heartbreaking journey into the soul of America.”
— Randy Susan Meyers , The Widow of Wall Street
 
“Laura Harrington has written a rich, dense, beautifully crafted novel.”
—Ann Napolitano , A Good Hard Look
 
“There is a fierceness to this book. A Catalog of Birds is an absolute marvel of a novel.”
—Robin Black, Life Drawing
 
“ A Catalogue of Birds immerses us in a world of family love; of yearning and faith and the devastation wrought by war on the human heart. Laura Harrington weaves American history and natural history into a riveting story of damage and resilience. Harrington's voice is as clear and distinctive as a bird call.”
—Rachel Kadish, award-winning author of The Weight of Ink 

"Laura Harrington’s new novel, A Catalog of Birds , is as accomplished as it is brave. As writers continue to peel away the layers of our involvement in Vietnam, few have ventured as close to the bone as Harrington."
— Wicked Local Beverly
Praise for Alice Bliss

"Nothing less than a fully realized vision of a young complicated girl."
— Entertainment Weekly

"Harrington's first novel makes a powerful statement against the war. Her story is harrowing and heartbreaking, it reads like truth."
—Sue Corbett, People Magazine (four stars)

"Alice Bliss is a heroine of her day whose relationship with her father is tenderly and movingly realized."
— London Sunday Times

"Though the fluid narration offers access to many characters, this is the story of Alice, her courage, fear, and optimism, and her heartbreaking discovery of the extent to which her father's life will shape and guide her own."
— Publishers Weekly

"Starred Review. This is a remarkably sensitive first novel, full of splendid characterizations."
— Booklist

"Heartbreaking yet edged with promise, Alice Bliss explores the wounds of war, love, and family bonds while illuminating the strength of a young girl's spirit. A stunning debut."
—Beth Hoffman, New York Times bestselling author of Saving CeeCee Honeycutt

From the Publisher

2017-04-17
The Vietnam War traumatizes a soldier and his family.In her quietly affecting second novel, playwright, lyricist, and librettist Harrington (Alice Bliss, 2011) returns to upstate New York, the setting of her previous fiction, and to a family grappling with the horrific war injury sustained by their son, Billy. When his helicopter was shot down, Billy alone survived, severely burned. A hospital stay is followed by challenging physical therapy that leaves him despondent, afraid he will never draw again—and drawing is his passion. The bird catalog of the title refers to Billy's field journals, depicting in precise, brilliant detail the proliferation of birds he observed in woods, lakes, and fields. Drawing birds, he says, became "a doorway, a bridge….It's how I lived in the world." The central relationship of the novel is between Billy and his younger sister, Nell, with whom he shares the wonders of nature. Frustrated and powerless to help Billy, Nell watches in despair as he succumbs to drink, depression, and nightmares. Although Billy is a sympathetic character, his traumas are by now familiar in novels and memoirs of the Vietnam War, his distinction being his artistic talent and connection to nature. Yet the natural world that he so deeply loves is being destroyed: Nell documents songbirds' levels of mercury, a toxin that attacks the birds' nervous systems, distracting them from sitting on their eggs long enough to hatch. Billy reports on a "rainbow moniker" of chemical agents used in Vietnam; Nell's father engages in a project to monitor water and soil contamination from pesticides. Subplots focus on Nell's deepening love for the solid, dependable Harlow, also a survivor of war; and the unsolved disappearance of Nell's best friend, and Billy's love, Megan. That mystery underscores Billy's sense of loss and the community's fear of being caught in a whirl of uncontrollable events—the war far from home and an unknown threat close by. It is a community, filled with those "suffering in mind, body or spirit." A sensitive rendering of shattered lives.

Kirkus Reviews

Echoes of war haunt this audiobook. One character after another is altered by the aftershocks of the Vietnam War, and narrator Josh Bloomberg tries mightily to capture all their voices and sorrows. Siblings Billy and Nell are the heart of the story, and their shared history is laid out for the listener at a brisk pace. While Bloomberg's passion is attention grabbing, his depictions of some characters border on caricature, with villainous sneers or manic bursts. There are moments when his enthusiasm creates excess energy that emerges as a distracting sibilance, the “s's” too sharp and stinging. Other times, though, the prose and the performance blend seamlessly, and the timeless grief of life after war eases into tragic focus. L.B.F. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

APRIL 2018 - AudioFile