Winged Creatures: A Novel

by Roy Freirich Narrated by Dion Graham

Overview

Winged Creatures is the startling story of six survivors of a gun massacre at a fast-food restaurant along a Michigan highway.

Teenagers Anne and Jimmy watch the gunman indiscriminately murder Anne's father and others, then himself. Struggling to understand her father's death, Anne experiences a virulent religious conversion, while Jimmy becomes mute, not speaking at all. Charlie, a barely-wounded teacher, attempts to make his luck work for him at the casino. Carla, the restaurant cashier, loses her ability to take care of herself and her infant son. Ron Abler, a psychologist, tries to help the survivors but gets little response. Dr. Laraby, an ER physician who failed to save two of the victims, turns to his wife as someone to “save.” Driven by secret torments, each struggles to regain trust in the ordinary world.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

The survivors of a gun massacre struggle with the aftermath in Freirich's stark, impressive debut. After a gunman walks into Carby's, a fast food chain restaurant along a Michigan highway, and kills two people before turning the gun on himself, a cross-section of society, including two teenagers, a driving instructor and a single mother emerge as survivors; their stories and viewpoints weave together for a tightly knit ensemble drama. Teenage Anne begins proselytizing religion after witnessing her father's death at Carby's, while her best friend, Jimmy-also a witness to the shooting-becomes mute after Anne makes him swear to not talk about her father. Driving instructor Charlie, wounded but alive, heads off to Vegas to test the luck that saved his life. Carla, a Carby's waitress and mother of an infant son, loses her grip on motherhood as she fixates on Bruce Laraby, an ER doctor who missed the carnage by moments. Bruce, meanwhile, has deep doubts about his abilities to heal, revealed through increasingly macabre actions involving his wife. Psychologist Ron Abler, charged with helping victims of the violence, finds no one wants his help. While emotionally charged, the narrative isn't weighed down with sentiment as the characters search for, but don't necessarily find, closure. (Jan.)

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School Library Journal

Adult/High School -The crazed gunman who opens fire at a fast food restaurant is the catalyst that turns the psychic wounds of five people into chasms of PTSD. Bruce Laraby, an ER physician mourning the recent loss of his father, a highly respected doctor, left Carby's moments before the shooting. He treats the victims, but when he fails to save one of them, self-doubt sets in. Teens Anne and Jimmy share a booth with her father and see him gunned down. The man's lack of heroism throws her into a frenzy of evangelical behavior, building her father into an icon. Jimmy retreats into a silence that is enhanced by his bullying father, who refuses psychological attention for his son. Charlie is buckling under the pressure to make his business a success and to provide for his young family. While standing in line at Carby's, he is grazed in the head by a bullet. In a daze, he discharges himself from the ER and drives to a casino, where he indulges his gambling addiction. Waitress Carla is trying to support herself and her son on her meager wages. Unhurt physically, she comes to the ER several times with her child, claiming cold symptoms, but she is more interested in seeing the young doctor as the violence triggered in her an awareness of her profound loneliness. Freirich neither characterizes the gunman nor analyzes his motivation. Readers will wonder what fissure in his life exploded into such a violent act. Unfortunately, school and public shootings continue to erupt on an all-too-regular basis, making Winged Creatures a relevant read.-Paula Decker, Charter Oak High School, Covina, CA

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169900460
Publisher:	Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Publication date:	01/08/2008
Edition description:	Unabridged

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